


Burning, and Other Misfortune

by NatRoze



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol/Drug Use, Bad Decisions, Gen, M/M, Mood Whiplash, Multi, Self Harm, attempted suicide, mentioned transphobia, the actual mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:59:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3562190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatRoze/pseuds/NatRoze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five boys make a lot of essentially terrible yet amusing decisions: the epic saga.<br/>In which Kavinsky kind of purposefully makes an enemy of the entire Bulgarian mafia; Skov descends into hell via the dark magic fast lane; Jiang does Mad Science, sets his hair on fire, nearly loses his sense of self completely and yet still drives better than anyone else; Swan graffities and then jumps off of at least one tall building as a means of teenage rebellion and attempted oblivion; and Prokopenko effectively becomes an evil mastermind.</p><p>Essentially this: The Dream Pack's origin story, wrapped up in a bow, doused in propane, lit on fire, and thrown at you.</p><p>This is not a happy story. Mind the tags. Brace yourself, and have fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peacemaker

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is pretty much the epitome of the phrases "it seemed like a good idea at the time," "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," and "YOLO" rolled into one nasty accident. I hope y'all enjoy it.
> 
> (note: the fic title and chapter titles are all songs. Yes, they are recommended listening, but not required to enjoy the ride. If you recognize a song off an 8tracks playlist you made about the Dream Pack, know that I love you and you have better taste in music than me as it pertains to these boys. I'll make a playlist of my own that's specific to this fic at some point once I've sorted more chapters out?)
> 
> (other note: I have no update schedule. I am both capricious and also a busy college student. I'm gonna try really fucking hard to finish this fic, but I can't make any promises about a) timeliness and b) completion because I'm notorious about that. I'll do my best. I promise)

Get in, get out. Don’t hesitate. Don’t look back. You get in, you get your shit together, you get out. Fast as you can. If you get in, you gotta get right back out. Before they see you. Before you bring back something you don’t mean to.

This is what Joseph Kavinsky repeats to himself every night, locked in his room, right before he falls asleep. It’s largely a precaution; he doesn’t go to the dream forest every night, but going by accident once was enough and more than that’s’ too many and he used to wish he’d never been in the first place. Something about a magical dream place full of monsters that can follow you back out when you wake up just really puts a guy on edge.

He understands loosely now, how it works. How to get in, how to get out. How to make it work for you. Five times in, he figured out the drill: the faster you get out the better. Don’t touch anything unless you really fucking mean it, and don’t let anything touch _you_ , ‘cause if you touch something it could be coming back with you whether you like it or not.

Two redblack stains on the carpet under his bed are more than enough of a reminder of this for Kavinsky.

The first time was an accident, and there were accidents following it too, things following him out when he woke up. Some living. Some not. Some stranger than others. Kavinsky has run almost the entire drug gambit by now, except for maybe PCP, and if he’s being honest, the first time he brought home a dream thing, he’d nearly thought he was hallucinating.

Or, he would have rationalized it that way, if he hadn’t been dead positive he’d gone to sleep sober. If he’d crashed while high and dreamt while high and woken up with aftershocks or something, that’d be one thing. But the first time it happened, he’d fallen asleep on the roof of the house, perched precariously behind the chimney, listening to his parents screaming at each other and breaking nice dishes somewhere two floors below. Too depressed to trip pleasantly, too scared to sneak into his room for alcohol, and too furious to jump. All he remembers thinking, before falling asleep, is _I wish I had a fucking knife or something_.

The dream –he barely even remembers the dream itself, now. It was insubstantial in his mind, it was melting in his memories, but he was sure of the forest. The dream place. It whispered to him, sometimes, even when he was awake. Or maybe that was a freak side effect of something he’d smoked, who fucking knows. All he really remembers of the dream is the roots of the trees curling around his limbs, holding him down, tightening around his neck and dragging him into the dirt. The mad desire for escape. Reaching for something, anything, freedom, release.

And he remembers the knife.

It sits now, wrapped in a black cloth, in a wooden box, under his bed.

He’s only a little afraid of it.

Not like half the stuff in his dreams has tried to fucking mutilate him or something.

That’s when he started dreaming with a purpose. If he had something in there to fight with, he’d be safe. And it worked. He could control the dreams, if he went in meaning to. And from that point there was really only one logical progression. He could bring things from his dreams into the real world, and he could control what he dreamt. The obvious connection was to bring something he _wanted_ out.

Get in, get out. Or, Get in, get your stuff, _then_ get out. Three years since the first time he brought something back from the other side. Three years of practice. Three years of trial and error and whimsy and terror. By this point, he’s about 90 percent sure he’s raised himself up to godhood.

Tonight is the night he truly ascends.

 Tonight, Kavinsky is gonna live up to the expectations of the family business in every way he can, although that’s not what he really intends. He’ll inherit it all –the lies, the tricks, the cunning and the violence –everything endemic to the mob. Everything but the title, which he doesn’t care for in the least. Fuck that. Everything he’s ever wanted, he can pull out of his own damn head already.

Kavinsky recognizes, somewhere very deep in the back of his mind that he tends to not focus hard on, that he hasn’t had a normal childhood. Most kids don’t get taught how to use a gun when they turn ten, “for future reference.” Most kids’ parents don’t install eight different security systems on their bedroom alone. Their dads don’t assume everyone is out to get them, child included. They don’t grow up with a raving-angry mother and a paranoid father. Most kids don’t grow up afraid to die if they don’t lock their doors.

It took Kavinsky until he watched _The Godfather_ at a friend’s thirteenth birthday party to really understand. The middle-of-the-night phone calls. The dozens of Bulgarian family friends in crisp suits. The gun under his father’s pillow, pointed at eight-year-old Kavinsky’s head when he woke his father up after a nightmare.

His father has tried to kill him four times since, on suspicion that Kavinsky was attempting to do the same to him. Paranoid bastard. Thinks if he tears him up and kicks him while he’s down enough that Kavinsky will just submit, or give up, or confess to the crimes he actually isn’t committing. Yeah, there was poison in that box of chocolates someone sent his dad, yeah, there was a swapped-luggage bomb scare once in the Sofia airport, but it wasn’t _his_ fault.

Everything is his fault, somehow. Fucking _global warming_ is probably his fault, according to his dad.

Tonight, on the first day of summer, on his seventeenth birthday, Joseph Kavinsky is gonna put his father out of everyone’s misery.

He needs two things from the dream. He goes to sleep with a purpose, and he opens his eyes in the woods. A bloodred sun glares in at him through the leaves overhead, like an eye, like a moment of truth. This is it.

_Get in, get out_. He nods. He thinks, two seconds, three, imagining what he needs in as much clarity as he can, and then he grabs everything and runs. Doesn’t look back. Doesn’t stop to make sure it’s right, or if it’s even what he’s expecting. He can always come back. He can come back a million times.

The things that wait for him in the woods whisper like the dead and crackle like bonfires, and Kavinsky shuts his eyes hard and wakes up. He only feels the slightest edges of the fire lick his fingertips as he goes.

It’s a long, dragging moment, his heart beating fast in his sluggish chest, before Kavinsky sits up in his bed and examines the fruits of his labor. In his lap is an unfortunate piece of paper with the word “p455w0rd” written on it repeatedly, and-

-and one successful attempt. Kavinksy feels a blissful bubbling in his chest that can only come with a job well done. No matter how many times he makes his dreams come true, he’ll never get used to the soaring, euphoric feeling of pride that comes with it. It’s not something he’s at all used to. Seventeen years of being a mistake or a fuckup or a bad imitation of a threat means he’s never had much reason to feel like he’s achieved something.

God, he could get high on his own pride.

Fingers twitching and eager, he picks the gun up off his lap and turns it over in his hands. It’s a perfect replica of the one he’s spent the last two weeks memorizing, right down to the wood finish on the hand grip and the coolness of the metal. A master forgery. Photographic memory or otherwise, he wants to make sure he gets it right. The only thing different about this gun and the hundreds of pictures of the Colt revolver he picked to memorize is that his initials are burned into the wooden grip in ornate looping cursive.

He pops open the cylinder. It’s empty. He forgot to dream bullets. Fuck.

Well, he’s gotta go back in anyway.

Two more attempts in, and the Things start coming for him.

They’re always there, in the shadows, or maybe they _are_ the shadows, and they creep up on him from all sides. He never sees them coming, but they crackle like fire at the edges of his hearing. He never sees them, until it’s too late and they’re already there, dragging up his arms and burning into his skin.

After dream number four he wakes up with the hem of his shirt in flames and blisters on the backs of his arms. But he also wakes up with an entire list of his father’s passwords and bank account information on a crisp letterhead sheet of paper. He throws his burning shirt in the bathtub, hopes the passwords are correct, and starts committing them to memory as he dabs burn cream on his skin in the bathroom and peppers his hands in band-aids.

Another dream later and he has two bullets in his hand when he wakes up screaming. His _whole body_ screams, god, it’s the worst agony he’s ever felt, he’s on fire, he’s on _fucking fire_. As soon as he can register what’s happening around him he snaps his mouth shut, cutting his voice off. A few scattered whines break through anyway.

All he knows for sure is the second he reached for the bullets in the dream the whole world was burning, shattering hell. There were no flames. There was nothing but shadow. Harmless-looking shadows, the shadows of the trees and the woods until they lurched away and became their own forms, wrapping around him. Everywhere they touched _burned_ , burned until his skin cracked and he bled, and when he woke up he was still screaming. Still bleeding, still on fucking fire.

He doesn’t know why they’d have even come out. Usually they’re only in his nightmares, fueled by the worst trips or the worst memories or the worst thoughts he’s ever had.

Maybe it’s because he went in thinking murder.

Somehow none of the shadows have followed him back, which is the _only_ possible benefit to the situation. Grabbing the gun and the two stray bullets off his bed, he stumbles to the bathroom. He has no time, no time at all if his father heard him screaming. He wants to keep screaming, but he stifles it, bites his lip hard enough to draw blood as he tries to dab at his wounds with a wet washcloth. God, he’s _covered_ in burns and cuts, these are gonna scar. Agonized tears prick at the corners of his eyes as he tries to assure himself that at least the pain’s not getting any worse. He fumbles in the medicine cabinet for the first aid kit.

Somewhere down the hall, a door slams. Kavinsky stifles a pained whimper and the first aid kit falls into the sink with a sharp clatter. Footsteps heavy on the wooden hallway floor; Kavinsky drops to his knees on the icy floor and opens the cylinder of the gun.

“Joseph,” says his father’s voice, from outside his locked bedroom door. “What on god’s green earth do you think you’re doing? It’s three in the fucking morning.”

Kavinsky jams the bullets into the gun and snaps it shut. He spins the cylinder and it rattles around just like in the movies. He’s sure his father can hear it. He wants him to hear it.

Tonight is the night Joseph Kavinsky makes good on the assassination attempts his father’s suspected him of for years, after all.

“Joseph! You little shit, what the hell are you up to in there?” His father bangs heavily on the door.

“Fuck off!” Kavinsky screams back, because skirting around how he feels isn't gonna matter in a few minutes, but his voice is breaking from the pain. He forces himself off the ground, gun in his hand, blood smeared on the floor, shaking with fury. The doorknob rattles.

Nobody gets to treat him like he’s been treated ever again. Nobody gets to beat him down or scare him ever again. His father thinks he’s after the power of the family business; _fuck_ the family business. Kavinsky doesn’t need the mob’s power, he’s got power enough on his own. Now, all he’s got left is to prove it and set himself free.

“Don’t you tell me to fuck off! Did you lock this fucking door?” his father screams, pounding on the door. “This is _my_ goddamn house, boy, you don’t get to lock the fucking door on me! What are you doing in there?! You’re up to something, I _know_ you’re up to something this time!”

The pounding stops, suddenly, and so does Kavinsky’s breath. Either his father has gone to find a key to unlock the door, or a crowbar to remove it. Neither bodes well. If that door gets open before Kavinsky can fully commit himself to firing the gun, he’s dead. He’s not gonna get away with a bruise or three this time. He’s _dead_. His stupid fucking reprehensible paranoid father finds him with a gun, he’ll beat him ‘til he gives it up and turn it back on him. He won’t hesitate before shooting. Kavinsky will have dreamt and manufactured his own death.

Shaking in pain and seventeen years of pent-up fear and fury, Kavinsky unlocks the safety on the pistol. He cocks the gun. He tries to steady his breathing. A thin, horrible smile creeps onto his face, anticipatory and incredulous, knowing and dreadful and sharp as knives.

He’s always had a damn good aim.

There’s a click from the doorknob, the sound of a key, and then slowly the knob twists. Kavinsky levels the gun at the door, arm extended, feet braced. He insists to himself the pain isn’t important, even though it’s threatening to bring him to his knees. It’s only gonna get better from here.

The door swings open. Briefly, Timotei Kavinsky is silhouetted in the doorframe, frozen in the shadows of the hallway before Joseph Kavinsky pulls the trigger.

He swears he doesn’t hear the first shot. Doesn’t feel the recoil. Doesn’t feel the burning pain anymore, or the pulsing anxiety, or the beating of his heart. There is nothing but adrenaline, but that bubbling, rising sense of what he’d thought was just pride before, but god is it more than that. It’s triumph, it’s glory, it’s everything. It’s freedom. He’s free. Holy fuck, he’s finally free.

The second shot he does hear, and it echoes forever in his soul. His father falls to the floor like an afterthought, one bullet hole through the chest and another through the forehead.

Officially speaking, Kavinsky inherits a large portion of the Bulgarian mafia. He thinks he has a cousin he can push the responsibility off onto, but he also doesn’t care one bit about that at the moment. In the wake of his father’s death, Kavinsky has one last brief moment of that golden, euphoric pride before it fades back into world-rending pain and he gasps. He shudders. He tries hard not to cry.

He’s still grinning like a maniac. He still feels like he won.

The gun drops from his fingers and he stumbles back through the bathroom door, falls to the floor and forcibly props himself up against the bathtub. From the pocket of his blood-streaked jeans he retrieves his phone, and with shaking fingers he dials the only number he can.

One ring, two, and then Prokopenko picks up. He never leaves Kavinsky hanging. God help them both, it’s three in the morning and Aglionby’s summer curfew is stupidly enforced, but he’ll come when Kavinsky calls. Loyalty is one of his best features.

Possibly, thinks Kavinsky, he’s more suited for the mob than he thought. Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb and all that bullshit. Too bad he doesn’t give a fuck about it.

“Proko,” Kavinsky says, “get your ass over here and put me back together before I bleed out. I need you to help me get rid of a body.”


	2. Diane Young

Sometimes, Swan still dreams of Chicago. Back before the worst six months of his life, back before screaming and court cases and custody battles, back before his father picked up and dragged him all the way out here to Henrietta two-thirds of the way through spring semester. To the middle of bumfuck _nowhere_ , Jesus _Christ_ , how could anyone call this a proper city? It's too small and too intimate. Swan's spent many a restless night brooding and driving around, trying to find somewhere to hide. It's difficult when the whole town pretty much knows everyone else's name, when everyone knows everyone else’s business. It's impossible to lose yourself when there's nowhere to get lost.

He misses the skyscrapers, the lights, the constant noise. He misses the anonymity. Aglionby kills that for him the most; people recognize the sweater, or the car, or the devil-may-care storming in his steps. And it all says something about him, they all automatically know something about him that he apparently doesn’t.

Out here it’s silent as the void at night, save for whatever the hell kind of insects hide in the bushes and chirp ‘til the sun comes back up. Henrietta nights seem empty of the kind of energy that bleeds out of neon signs and hundreds of headlights, and it feels like it’ll swallow him up. Whatever it is, it's impossible to get away from _anything_ out here, and it's suffocating Swan slowly.

God, he just wants to go home.

On nights when he's mostly just feeling resentful –about the divorce, or his parents, or the world at large –he goes and finds where they've scrubbed his last round of graffiti tags off the walls, and he puts them all back, twice as intricate and meticulous. He’s turning into a real fucking artist at this rate, and he’s determined to get at least one tag to stay up for more than a weekend. It's an exercise in futility, he knows; they've got a community group dedicated to beautifying Henrietta that washes it all off on Tuesday mornings or something, but the idea of it makes him feel a little bit better about things. Like he's left something behind to prove he really existed, to prove he could be something people would remember.

Sometimes, on nights like that, he'll get in his Golf and race anyone who offers. He doesn’t like to start it, but there's always someone around to convince him and he’s not at all hard to convince. Public school punks. Aglionby brats. College assholes. Joseph Kavinsky, frequently. He never turns down an opportunity to prove (again, and again and again and fucking _again_ ) that not only does he have the faster vehicle, he's also a smug douchefuck about it. Kavinsky is one of two people Swan's ever lost to, and he's eternally bitter over it. One day, he thinks, he'll pull something classically horrible and stick a potato in the exhaust pipe of his Mitsubishi, like in the old cartoons. He doubts it'd be as graphic and explosive as the movies, and he doubts it'd even work, but he'd feel better about himself for having tried it. Besides, if he's telling the truth, he's a little bit scared if he does anything permanent to Kavinksy's car, Kavinsky will do something permanent to _him_.

Sometimes he thinks he’d like that, though.

Some nights, though, it’s not as simple as Swan needing to make a mark. Sometimes he can’t satisfy himself just trying to prove to the world he’s there and he’s better than it all. He can’t blame all the atrocities of life on the rest of the world. He can’t find it in himself to shift the hatred somewhere else. Sometimes he resents not just the world, but the fact that he’s gotta be stuck in it. There are ways out, he knows, and the fact that he can so easily achieve them scares the shit outta him.

On those nights, when Swan really, truly despises himself, on the nights where he thinks he hasn't hidden his knives well enough, he needs the most acerbic, relentless, all-encompassing kind of distractions he can find.

Tonight is one of those.

It's almost midnight when Swan gets fed up with alternately throwing his shit at the walls and lying face-down on the floor in a pool of his own self-loathing. He gets dressed, climbs out the window of his room –the front door's too loud –and drops heavily to the grass two floors below. He stands up, legs aching from the impact, and takes a slow drag of the cool night air. It's early September, right before the start of school, when the last edges of summer have yet to bleed out of the world, and the wind smells like an imminent storm. Swan feels electric, he feels achingly empty. The world holds still around him, like he's waiting on a lightning strike, on an act of God, on something fast and sudden and preferably over quickly.

He really needs to lose himself, and fast.

He crosses the yard, boots crunching in the heat-dry grass, and gets into his car. He pulls down the street and he’s around the corner before he cranks up the music, some death metal disaster that cuts into him and validates his need for oblivion. And when he’s far enough away from his dad and the house and the reality of the world, he breathes in deep and floors it.

The substance party is already in full swing when Swan shows up. A raucously-cheered on game of vehicular chicken is happening out in the middle of the field. Swan watches as someone’s Saab nearly careens headlong into somebody else’s already dented Volvo. Kids from all over the surrounding area loiter around cars, drinking and smoking and dropping acid and doing lines. Some kid in a snapback who Swan doesn’t recognize has set up a DJ table on the front of their souped-up RX-7 and is blasting weird underground EDM. Prokopenko is mixing coolers out of the back of his car. Nothing’s on fire yet, which means either Kavinsky isn’t completely plastered yet or Jiang has yet to show up.

Swan resents the fact that he can name regulars at these events; he doesn't exactly get along with Kavinsky and his typical crowd. He tries hard to avoid them. Swan is equally as much of a destructive angry shitbag as the sort of folks that willingly interact with Kavinsky, but god dammit, he's a _righteous_ destructive angry shitbag. He won't stand for Kavinsky's tendency to ignore consequences when innocent and unsuspecting peoples' lives are involved. Swan would pump his own veins full of venom and purposefully drive over a cliff and drown himself in vodka and set his own hair on fire but he would never hurt someone who wasn't really fucking asking for it.

It’s just too bad a lot of folks are really asking for it. Kavinsky, for example, is asking for it about 300 percent of the time.

Prokopenko sees him arrive on the scene and waves him over enthusiastically. Swan isn’t sure exactly what he did to make Prokopenko like him, because he thinks he was totally wasted when they first met. He also suspects he might never know, because as affable as Proko is, he’s also very cagey. Possibly he did something self-deprecating and amusing while intoxicated. Possibly he and Proko hooked up or something. God only knows.

Swan is thinking _far_ too much. He just wants to lose himself in the noise.

He approaches Proko’s car, the same model as his, but in a flamboyant shade of purple instead of Swan’s classy white. Swan perches himself in the open back of the car and leans his head on the side. Proko grins at him and slaps him on the back; Swan growls under his breath.

“Can I getcha something or did you bring your own?” asks Proko. Swan purses his lips and sighs at him.

“Make me something that’ll fuck me up. Vodka-based, if possible. I get along with Vodka.”

“One screwdriver surprise, coming up.” Proko fishes around in his cooler and produces several bottles.

“Do I want to know what the surprise is?” Swan wonders. Proko laughs as he mixes the drink.

“That’s not what surprise means.”

“Of course not.” Swan flicks a half-hearted salute at Proko as he hands him a red Solo cup. Logically, Swan thinks he should probably insist on knowing the contents of it. Not because he thinks Prokopenko, out of anyone here, has the balls to roofie him, but because of the incredibly high likelihood that the “surprise” it contains was probably procured by Kavinsky. Half the stuff he’s had at substance parties can be traced directly back to Kavinsky, which usually means it’s so illegal or new it doesn’t have a street name yet.

He drinks what Proko’s given him anyway. He doesn’t have it in him to hesitate or care right now. He downs the whole cup, and it burns like ice in the back of his throat. Proko tosses him a Pepsi for a chaser. He holds out his cup and Proko refills it with a laugh, and he downs this round too. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, and Swan loses track of how many drinks he’s had but that’s okay, that’s totally okay because that’s the point.

Sometime later, when the world is tilting pleasantly on its axis, Swan thinks he’d like to go find Kavinsky. He can’t decide whether he’d like to kill him or kiss him. Maybe it’s both. Not necessarily in that order, he’s flexible. Also incredibly intoxicated. As he pushes himself off the back bumper of Proko’s car, the ground rushes up quite cordially to meet his face.

The grass is so cool on his cheeks. Ahhhh.

Proko drags him to his feet, laughing. “Cuttin’ you off, man. Don’t want the cops dragging your body outta here in the morning,” he says, taking Swan’s Solo cup away. He hadn’t realized he was still holding it. He gives it up willingly, or maybe he lets it be taken from him because he’s too blissed out to care. God, what _was_ the surprise, anyway? The world feels soft around the edges, the moon is a brilliant beacon in the summer sky above, and everything glitters with potential. Or danger. It’s hard to tell the difference when you’re drunk.

Swan stumbles blissfully away from Proko’s car in search of Kavinsky. He does not find him, though. What he finds instead is dizziness, and then soon afterwards he finds a bright red Mazda RX-7 with a DJ setup perched on the hood, and he slumps comfortably against the side of the car. Shortly after that he finds the DJ himself. Herself? Themselves. Swan is too drunk to figure it out for himself, and it’s nobody he thinks he’s ever met anyway. He sees skinny jeans and soft black hair and a pointy thin face, but he also sees a snapback and shitty scuffed Vans shoes. Either way, DJ’s come to see what the hell he’s doing crashing on the side of his-her-their –god who knows –car.

“Don’t drool on my paint job, asshole,” says the DJ, rather affably. Their voice is level-toned and bright and isn’t helping Swan place their gender any better. Swan props himself up and gives the DJ a once-over as they leave to go back to their turntables. Whoever they are, they’ve got a nice ass.

Swan leans on the side of the car as he tries to steady himself. If he’s being honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely positive if he wanted to find Kavinsky so he could hit him or hit _on_ him. Either one would’ve ended with him facedown in the dirt, probably with a concussion. He’s not sure he could explain a concussion to his dad right now, so he thinks he’ll go try and find a more existential kind of oblivion with the pretty little DJ over here.

Making his best attempt at looking cool, Swan swaggers around to the front of the car and tries his best to lean sexily on the hood across from the DJ's setup. However suave he’d wanted to look is hampered slightly by the drunken stumbling. As far as Swan can tell, he’s still going to remember this in the morning, but he’s lost his grip on his body movements. That’s fine; he can descend into the void and leave behind his physical form. That’d be nice.

Swan makes himself a mental note to stop his inner monologue before it gets too Lovecraftian, because this is just excessive.

DJ looks up and raises an eyebrow at him; upon closer examination, Swan decides he really doesn’t recognize this kid, so they probably go to the local public school. If so-

“Where the hell'd you get a car this nice?” he asks. Because the Mazda RX-7 that belongs to the DJ isn’t something you’d normally see on the streets of Henrietta. Or, for that matter, anywhere besides a professional event. It’s well on its way to being a real live racing vehicle. It’s even got what Swan considers some really unnecessary aftermarket bits added on, like neon lights underneath. It’s damn showy and damn impressive.

“I won it,” says the DJ.

“Off who?”

“Who do you think?”

Kavinsky, of course. Who else would just hand out a fucking car like this? Swan can’t say he’s not impressed. “How?”

“I showed up here my first time on a bike and he dared me to race him. I didn’t have a car, I had to borrow someone’s, he said if I could beat him he’d get me any damn car I wanted. So I beat him.”

“You beat Kavinsky. Just like that.”

DJ nods.

“And he just. Gave you a stupidly fancy car.”

DJ nods again. Swan is _really_ impressed. And a little jealous, god damn. _He’s_ never outraced Kavinsky. Who the heck is this kid anyway? Clothes say _not Aglionby_ for sure, but Swan can’t tell one Henrietta public school type from another yet.

“You got a name, DJ?”

“Do you?”

“Xavier Swan,” he replies easily. He shoots the DJ his most sincere smile and tries to look like he’s only half as plastered as he really is. It’s decently easy, provided DJ kid can forget that Swan was just draped dizzily against the side of their car. He makes a finger gun and points it jokingly at DJ kid. “Now you,” he says, grinning.

“Skov.”

“First name?”

Skov thinks for a minute. “I’ll get back to you on that,” they say. Then they purse their lips. And then they add, with a tinge of annoyance, “You can't tell."

"Tell what?"

"You're pulling that asshole face that says  _I wanna hit on you but I don't know what you've got under the hood._ Would it help you sort your shit any if you knew I was a guy?"

“I wasn’t pulling shit,” says Swan. “I _am_ hitting on you. I am an equal-opportunity hookup partner.” He flashes his best “clever little maniac” smile just in case. Skov blinks, and then he laughs, a ridiculous, loud cackle of a laugh that tears through the shitheaded grin and drags a real smile onto Swan’s face.

“Well, if that's the case,” says Skov. He fusses about with his turntables and his laptop for a bit, and puts on a premade mix, something low and dark and heavy on the bass. Then, stepping gracefully around the back bumper of his car, he slides right up into Swan’s personal space and hooks a finger into his belt loop to tug him closer. With his other hand, he hikes up the hem of his shirt to reveal a switchblade tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Jovially, he says, “If you do anything I disagree with, or get me pregnant, I’ll seriously stab you.”

“Pregnant? Thought you said you were a guy.”

“I am, fuckface. Thought _you_ said you were an _equal opportunity hookup partner_.”

“I am.” Swan leans down and nips at the edge of Skov’s lips, tugs on his snakebite piercings, hopes to god this kid doesn’t care that his breath smells like booze and then kisses him like everything is burning. Skov gives back as good as he gets, letting his hands slide across Swan’s back, pressing their hips together without hesitation, following Swan’s lead with the nipping and biting. Nice.

Skov opens the door of his car and the pair of them tumble gracelessly into the passenger seat of the Mazda, hands grasping at clothes and mouths tracing skin with a fervor that only comes hand-in-hand with alcohol and music with a solid beat. _It’s gonna be a good night_ , thinks Swan, _or possibly morning_ , because at this point it’s probably like two a.m. and the party isn’t gonna wrap up for another couple hours. Kavinsky will drag out the end of summer break as long as he can and ring in the new school year with cocktails of both the mixer and Molotov sort alike. The bass will keep pumping, the cars keep crashing, and Swan will forget he hates himself for the wonderful few minutes that are about to happen to him.

Skov climbs on top of him, straddles his hips and strips out of his shirt. He’s got hand-done stick-and-poke tattoos all up his ribcage, odd eclectic symbols and meandering quotes in pointy script, disappearing up his chest underneath an ace bandage. Swan bites his lips and leans forward to trace Skov’s tattoos with his tongue, because _hot damn_.

Skov pins Swan’s hands above his head and leans down to suck at his neck-

-and then a massive fucking explosion goes off, far too close for comfort. Both boys sit bolt upright; Skov knocks his head on the ceiling and Swan gets whiplash from lurching forward too quick. A shiny silver Volvo parked hardly eight feet away is cheerfully ablaze with all the windows blown out. Over the glass-specked silver hood, Swan sees Jiang and Kavinsky engage in some kind of elaborate fucking bro-fist secret handshake before K preps another Molotov and hands it to Jiang. He aims high as ever and pelts the bottle clear through the burning Volvo. It hits the side of the Mazda –Skov winces and murmurs about the paint getting scuffed –and explodes, setting the grass ablaze.

“Nothing kills a mood like nearly getting set the hell on fire,” says Skov, pursing his lips in frustration. He climbs awkwardly into the driver’s seat, starts the car, and then backs up as carefully as he can from the burning grass without his DJ equipment falling off the back of the car.

“Jiang, you pyromaniac asshole!” Swan screams through the open window. Jiang can’t hear him over the roar of the flames and his perpetually-blasting headphones and his own euphoria, but screaming makes Swan feel better about it all. When he looks back at the driver’s seat and his almost-partner in oblivion for the night, he’s not entirely surprised to find that Skov’s nicked his phone out of his pocket sometime in the past few moments. He _is_ surprised he’s cracked the passcode and is typing into it. Skov tosses the phone back at his chest; he turns it around to see his contacts open with Skov’s number newly added.

“Elliot?” says Swan, reading off the contact. “Elliot Skov.”

“Maybe.” Skov shrugs, eyebrows raised and lips twisted into a terrifyingly endearing pout. “I’m trying it out. Text me sometime, we can reengage this.” Swan narrows his eyes at him, almost skeptical. Possibly he’s drunk enough that he’s misheard. Skov blinks slowly, and then backpedals, flustered. “I mean, if you want. No pressure, man.”

“I’ll text you,” Swan says slowly. He’s never had anyone tell him to text him after a hookup, much less a we-tried-to-hook-up. Especially not after a started-hooking-up-at-a-substance-party-and-then-something-got-blown-up-and-I-lost-the-urge. He very much fights the desire to smile, and fails miserably. He also fights the desire to laugh until he’s sick, because sick is a very likely thing to happen considering how much unidentified booze he’s consumed.

Skov smiles back at him. It feels like a sucker punch straight to the gut, and since he’s already drowned his feelings in alcohol that’s effectively what Swan came looking for at the party to begin with. He’d assumed it would be in the form of combat, but he supposes this works too. A straight shot of adrenaline to the soul and a surprise bazooka to the heart.

He drives home before Jiang and K and the other guys decide his empty car is a good next addition for the bonfire. He forgets why he was broken up enough to go to the party in the first place, and that’s kind of the point.

He climbs the ivy on the back side of his dad’s stupid mass-manufactured gated community house and drops back through his bedroom window. He lays on his back in the middle of the floor, among the flung-around books and toppled furniture and tossed clothing, and he stares at Skov’s number on his phone. In an hour or so the sun will come up and he’ll glare it down and resent the world at large and his parents in general and himself in particular, and he’ll think the whole night was about ninety percent a waste of his time. But right now, for this brief period of time, he can’t remember any of that shit.

He breathes in deep, stares up at the lightless ceiling and the glow of his phone, and he shoots Skov a text.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter song: Diane Young by Vampire Weekend  
> (and because I forgot to mention, last chapter's is by Green Day, and the title of the fic is by a group called Bogsey and the Argonauts and actually has lyrically little bearing on the fic anymore compared to when i came up with it but i still like the title so)
> 
> I'm trying to keep a solid balance, at least towards the beginning, of emotional upheaval and madcap shenanigans. Like, chapter 1 was exclusively feels and next chapter is gonna be almost exclusively shenanigans. but keeping a balance between that while keeping everyone's character consistent is difficult, so lemme know if something seems off about anybody's characterization, /please/
> 
> anyway hi i'm nat you guys are possibly my luckiest fic audience ever because i've actually got this one written out several chapters ahead which is unusual for me normally i just kind of write off the cuff and post it immediately but i'm actually going through an editing and planning process with this one and i know how it's gonna end which is unusual for me in fic-land.  
> you are officially welcome to the party have fun it's gonna get nuts.


	3. Dangerous

Kavinsky does indeed herald the start of a new school year with mass quantities of arson, vandalism and overindulgence. He thinks at one point toward the end of the party he did a line off of someone’s ass, but he can’t remember if he did and if so, whose ass it was. Five minutes after waking up to his god-awful alarm clock he decides he does not care. He never cares much the next morning, because everything looks grayer and faded when things aren’t raving around him or exploding inside him. Sometimes the world is a supernova. Most times, it’s not, and it’s like having his will to live vacuumed out of him in slow-motion while he’s forced to watch.

Also, he’s got another new email in his dad’s Business inbox that he can’t answer and _really_ can’t delete, and _that_ just drains all the joy right the fuck out of him. He squints at the message on the screen of his phone, mouth flatlining in annoyance. It’s been like two whole months, they should be over this shit by now.

God, nothing ruins a morning worse than the threat of responsibility hanging over his head like a fucking sword. When it comes to the Family Business, the threat tends to be less metaphorical. And the responsibility is not so much in the sense of the phrase “Joseph Kavinsky is responsible,” which is a lie, but in the sense of the phrase “Joseph Kavinsky is responsible for this” which is usually not. In this case, it’s the Family wanting to know if Joseph Kavinsky is responsible for the death of his father, and he hopes to god they never find out the truth. He’s done fearing death on someone else’s count.

The new be-all-end-all is that Nobody Fucks Around With Joseph Kavinsky. He just won’t stand for it. You fuck around with Kavinsky, you get shot in the face and burned on a pyre in the backyard while some asshole pours one out for you to feed the flames.

Kavinsky sneers at the email. Defiantly, he spikes the phone against the floor and rolls indignantly out of bed, dragging the covers with him.

The last thing he wants to do today is put on his goddamn uniform and prance through the gates of Aglionby like a trained monkey, but he does it anyway. Well, not the prancing. He swaggers purposefully out of the parking lot with his pants sagging, his uniform sweater left behind and tied to the spoiler of his car like a flag, and the top three buttons of his shirt popped open to show off the new chains he’s dreamt himself for the occasion. He leaves his sunglasses on when he enters the building because fuck it, he’d rather be cool than practical.

It’s already lunch by the time he meets up with anyone he cares to see (with the brief exception of Ronan Lynch, who promised him a swift vehicular death should they meet on the road, how _thrilling_ ); at least one of ‘em should’ve been in a class with him by now but past experience says Jiang might not even have woken up before eleven so who knows. Kavinsky takes the stairs in the main building two at a time, jimmies open the lock on the classroom at the end of the hall, and then climbs through the furthest-out window onto the roof. He scales his way easily to the peak –if the streets are his kingdom, then the rooftops of Henrietta are the nice little Caribbean islands he’s annexed –where he finds Jiang and Prokopenko already peering over the edge of the gutter, trying to spit on new freshmen enjoying an outdoor lunch down below.

Kavinsky plops himself down next to Prokopenko, who throws a cordial arm around his shoulders. He thumps a fist against Proko’s chest on principle, and Proko drags him into a friendly headlock. They literally just saw each other at the end of the party, but who cares? Nobody cares. Prokopenko is such a puppy; he’s literally always happy to see Kavinsky and acts like he’s been away at war for the past few years instead of at home for the past few hours.

Kavinsky revels in the attention, in the contact, in the sheer concept that someone could be this happy to see him. He’s never sure what to do with it once he’s got it, though, so he repeatedly shoves an elbow into Prokopenko’s stomach until he lets go.

“It gonna be a good school year?” Proko asks as Kavinsky pulls a Rockstar energy drink out of his backpack.

“Sure. Lots of plans. Tell me what sounds like the best time: raising a clone army-”

“Hell no, man, the last thing we need is competition for our awesome,” Proko cackles. “Too much of a good thing.”

“No such thing.” He considers ruffling Proko’s hair, and at the last second changes his mind and whaps him affably on the back of the head instead. Proko shoves him in return, and he almost topples off the roof. His stomach lurches in a mix of horror and anticipation, and then before he knows it Jiang and Proko both have a hold on his arms and they’re hauling him back upright. He doesn’t let them hear how hard he’s breathing.

“How about starting a parody hair metal band?” he suggests drily, taking a swig of Rockstar.

“Fuck no,” says Jiang, yanking out one of his earbuds. He produces a zippo lighter from somewhere on his person and, seemingly without paying attention to his actions, sets fire to the school lunch atrocity on the end of his fork. “Why the hell would we start a _parody hair metal band_? Where do you come up with this bullshit?”

“Well, shit, no need to call the fun police,” Kavinsky says, and even though he honestly gives less than half a shit about starting a band, he adds, “I was hoping you’d sing for us, J.”

“And I repeat, _fuck. No._ ” Jiang punctuates this statement by pointing the flaming thing on his fork at Kavinsky.

“I already have a perfect band name picked out.”

“Don’t you even-”

“ _Jesus and the Baby Eaters._ ”

“I’m gonna put arsenic in your food,” says Jiang, throwing the fork at Kavinsky. He misses and it tumbles down the roof. Kavinsky marvels at the thought of it lighting the bushes down below on fire.

“Jesus and the Baby Eaters is a fucking great band name, fuck you.”

“Fuck _you_.”

“Go fuck yourself with this.” Kavinsky nabs Proko’s spoon out of his jello cup and pitches it at Jiang.

“Shove an entire cactus up your ass.”

“Right, let me just go _get_ myself a damn cactus-”

“Alright,” says Proko, “Quit flirting already. K, what’s your other ideas?”

Kavinsky leans back on the peak of the roof, as far as he can go without losing his grip. The warm Henrietta wind tousles his hair as thoughts scroll through his head like a film reel. He considers speeding down the highway with the back of Identical Mitsubishi #23 (or whichever one he’s at now) on fire, see how far he can get before the wheels melt away. Getting Ronan Lynch completely wasted. Dreaming up a copy of himself so he can really act on it when someone tells him to go fuck himself. So many ideas, so little of him to waste on it all. “Man, I dunno,” he says. “We could start a drug empire outta my basement.”

“You already have a drug empire in Henrietta,” Proko reminds him unnecessarily, as if Kavinsky isn’t aware that kids come from several counties over for the shit he dreams up.

“I mean a proper one. I was thinking on a more global scale here.” Kavinsky holds his hands out to measure, as wide apart as he can.

Proko goes quiet, almost says something, but changes his mind. Which means he’s nervous, which means he’s thinking whatever he’s got to say is gonna piss Kavinsky off. Well, he’d rather be pissed off then left in the dark, so Kavinsky levels a Look at him, like _say it or I push you off the roof_. He probably wouldn’t actually push Proko. Probably.

Prokopenko chews thoughtfully on his lower lip. “You mean using your dad’s connections?” he says finally.

_Definitely gonna push him off the roof_ , thinks Kavinsky. It must show on his face, because Proko quickly follows this up with a flustered “Kidding,” while Jiang eyes them curiously. “You can totally do it without getting that shit involved.”

“Your dad has drug connections?” he says. “Can he hook us up with some molly?”

Prokopenko goes very still, watching Kavinsky carefully, like he might suddenly lunge forward and try and kill Jiang for asking too much about his dad. It’s nice that Proko feels like he knows him so well that he could predict how he’d act. It’s been a pain of a summer, kids making the jokes they usually do about Kavinksy’s family, but after his birthday, even Kavinsky has to admit he’s been on edge about it.

Shortly after Timotei Kavinsky stopped answering his emails for good, the Family picked a slick teenage boy –some distant relation of Kavinsky’s, probably –to go undercover at Kavinsky’s Fourth of July party and re-hype all the Bulgarian Mafia Rumors. Only this time, the rumors were being spread with the new addition of “Joseph Kavinsky tried to kill his dad, did you hear?” in an attempt to find out if it really _had_ been Kavinsky behind Timotei’s death.

Kavinsky, for an entirely understandable reason called “I don’t wanna get killed by the mafia”, freaked the hell out. He invited the distant cousin or whoever into the back of his car to talk it out and come to an understanding, and at the end of the conversation, only Kavinsky stepped back out, gun still smoking in his hand.

Maybe Kavinsky’s been dead terrified since then by the fact that they know exactly where he is and could send assassins for him if they ever found out he really did it. Maybe.

Kavinsky doesn’t push Jiang off the roof. It’s not Jiang’s fault he spends too much time making horrifying art and playing video games and literally never removing his headphones to pay attention to the rumor mill. Not his fault he somehow failed to notice nobody ever mentions Kavinsky’s dad within fifty feet of him unless they’re actively looking for a fight. Or maybe he _is_ actively looking for a fight, which means Kavinsky isn’t gonna rise to the bait. He’s not in the mood.

“Don’t be a moron,” says Kavinsky. _“_ You and I both know _I_ can hook you up with better molly than my dad’s stupid connections. How much d’you want?”

“Like an entire car full of it.” Jiang jokes.

In all seriousness, Kavinsky replies, “Done.”

\---

 

Skov ditches last period because Fuck Last Period is his motto of the week. It’s the first day of school, which means nobody’s doing anything but raining syllabuses and expectations all over his parade, and he’s got a date to stress over.

Well, maybe it’s a date. Neither he nor Swan was especially specific about it over text, beyond “we should continue doing whatever it was that was about to happen before Joseph Kavinsky and Zihao Jiang nearly set us on fire, because you’re hot and you think I’m hot and we should get blazed and fuck.”

Skov walks from school to Nino’s and changes clothes in the bathroom. Ma’s never seen him leave the house in anything he’d ever willingly put on; most mornings he changes in the locker room before school starts and spends the day pleased with himself until he has to change again to go home. Today he’s brought an extra outfit, something a little edgier, something a little sexier. Or at least he thinks it’s sexier. The jeans are tighter, anyway.

He fusses with his hair in the mirror and tries to get it to do something besides hang in front of his eyes like he’s a scene kid reject, but it resists even his most persistent efforts. He should stop fussing. Probably it’s not actually a date. Probably it’s just him and Swan chilling out, smoking behind the movie theater, and then fucking in the back of whatever fancy Aglionby car Swan happens to own.

But maybe it is a date. Maybe that’s what qualifies as a date. Skov doesn’t know. He’s never been on one. It doesn’t sound like an average hookup, though, and he’s engaged in enough of _those_ that he could chart a graph comparing dick size to sexual prowess of at least half the boys at Aglionby.

(He in fact _has,_ for ironic and humorous purposes, charted a dick size versus sexual prowess graph of at least half the boys at Aglionby, and it’s on his blog, and he updates it as frequently as he gets the opportunity. The girls at Mountain View High check it religiously, and so do a fair number of the boys. The entire debate team is on the graph, as is the young Democrats club, and obviously the majority of the GSA is too. He’s even got the whole tennis team, except for Ronan Lynch, who punched him in the face when he insisted that he “had to collect the full set.” Skov jokingly told Kavinsky about the graph the second time he went to one of his parties, and Kavinsky demanded to be added to the data set immediately. Skov informed him as casually as was humanly possible that a requirement for that was hooking up with him, and so Kavinsky did, and promptly became the graph’s first outlier. It was awesome.)

On principle, Skov thinks, he’ll have to add Xavier Swan to the chart. The prospect of that is, for reasons he can’t identify, really bothering him.

He fixes his hair in the mirror for the eighth time, and then leaves to wait outside Nino’s for Swan to show up. Or, he _would_ wait outside Nino’s for Swan to show up, if Swan wasn’t already there in the parking lot behind the front seat of a blindingly white Volkswagen Golf, blasting really horrible prog metal out of the speakers.

The world shakes around Skov. He tells himself it’s Swan’s speakers. His better judgement suggests to him that maybe it’s Swan himself.

Swan waves him over. He’s still wearing his school uniform, although the tie and sweater are tossed haphazardly into the backseat of the car. Skov throws his messenger bag back there too and joins Swan in the front seat of the car. He turns down the music to a more humanly tolerable level and grins at Skov; his teeth are as glitteringly white as his car.“Where we off to?” Swan asks. Skov doesn’t have an answer for this. He’s concerned, because he’s too sober not to be nervous, that he’s gonna say something about the damn dick size graph, or about Swan’s pretty collarbone peeking out of the unbuttoned top of his shirt (also impeccably white), or who even knows. He shrugs. Swan shrugs too.

“Let’s just drive then ‘til we figure something out,” he suggests.

“Cool.”

“Right.”

So they drive. And predictably, it gets awkward fast. They hardly know each other, god, they met while Swan was absolutely wasted and Skov himself was probably still high on something at a party less than twenty-four hours ago. All they’ve experienced together comes down to inebriated flirtations and nearly getting blown up. They have _nothing_ to talk about, and after about ten minutes this becomes a problem.

 “Right,” repeats Swan. “D’you smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Wanna go dick around at the park and smoke?”

“Why not?”

And so they do. They park the car and Swan rolls a joint while Skov fucks around on the swing set, and then Swan passes him the joint and the two of them climb all the way to the top of the sun-bleached plastic-topped playground structure and they keep passing it back and forth until it runs out. Swan asks Skov if he mixed the playlist from the party himself, and Skov lets him look through his iPod to see for himself. Skov asks Swan where the hell he gets his shoes, because combat boots are the most fantastic idea anyone’s ever had and god knows he could use better shoes than beat-up Vans that have somehow survived since freshman year. They chat, and they tell stupid stories, and then Swan casually mentions he has a fuckload of spray paint in the back of the Golf.

“What the hell are we doing up here, then?” says Skov. “This place could use some color.”

Swan smiles at him like he wants to outdo the sun. “That’s the best thing you’ve said all day.”

As they root through the ridiculously overfull box of aerosol cans in the back of Swan’s car, Skov marvels at what it must be like to be a rich kid. There’s gotta be like forty different colors at least. Dozens and dozens of spray cans-

“-and somehow I _still_ can’t find a frickin’ green one,” he mutters. To Swan, he says, “Do you have, like, a mint kinda colored one?”

“Probably.” Swan selects a horrifying shade of orange and sets it fastidiously upright on the concrete beside a whole host of other shades of yellows and golds and reds.

“Dude, you gonna do a whole damn mural or something?”

“Gotta replace the one the community center scrubbed off last week,” he replies with a shrug. Before Skov can ask him if he regularly engages in graffiti warfare with the community center folks, Swan says, “Here’s your mints.” He tosses Skov two different cans and adds one more garish red to his stack. Swan closes the trunk of the car just in time to give them both a perfect view of Kavinsky’s enthusiastically-embellished Mitsubishi cruising by. Kavinsky hangs out the front window; Prokopenko is riding shotgun and Jiang is leaning forward from the back seat. They’re all gawking, with varying degrees of surprise; Proko is making kissy lips at them.

Kavinsky and Swan lock eyes with each other for a short, horrifying moment before Kavinsky blows a sarcastically loud smooch in Swan’s direction and Swan quite cordially says “Get bent, you arrogant fuckstick.”

Ignoring the comment, Kavinsky smirks at Skov. “Nice beats last night, babe.”

“ _Babe_?” Swan sputters incredulously. Skov is almost one hundred percent certain Kavinsky only said it specifically to annoy Swan. Almost. He’s never sure whether Kavinsky’s flirting with him or antagonizing him. Possibly both. Flirtation, frustration and intimidation tend to be one and the same thing when it comes to Kavinsky.

“Thanks,” says Skov. “Next time I’m gonna charge money though.”

“Name your price. I can pay you in pretty much anything,” Kavinsky replies, and Skov knows he means that very literally. Skov wonders how annoyed Kavinsky would get if he asked him to pay his DJ fees entirely in two dollar bills, or cows, or some other weird outdated currency. He wonders if Kavinsky could actually forge useable money or if he’d get caught somehow.

Kavinsky pulls the Mitsubishi to a complete stop and leans even further out the window. To Swan, he says, “Hey, ugly duckling.”

“Go fuck yourself,” answers Swan.

Kavinsky smirks at this too, and Skov realizes he’s not ignoring Swan’s comments at all; he’s just enjoying getting a rise out of him. Casually he says, “Can do. Want pics?”

“Kavinsky,” Skov interrupts, equally casually. “You’re totally ruining my date.”

At this, Kavinsky’s eyebrows arch in surprise, and Jiang and Proko crack up and start wolf-whistling at them. Out of the corner of his eye, Skov notices Swan making a valiant attempt not to smirk. “Is that so,” says Kavinsky. He winks at Skov in a way that suggest both that, despite whatever bad blood runs between him and Swan, he’s encouraging Skov to go get some, and also that he still remembers the dick size graph and wants to hear all about where Swan’s data point falls and if he’s a better lay or not. And then his expression changes to what Skov likes to call his Devil Grin, all fangs and smolder and the flames of hell in his eyes. It’s the look he gets before he rains down horrifying devastation on someone who’s crossed him wrong.

He turns this look on Swan and says, “You have your fun, sweetheart, but know this: Skov’s one of mine, so if you fuck him up and it gets back to me, I’ll personally nail you to the Henrietta exit sign and set your face on fire.”

And then, before Skov has time to get annoyed, Kavinsky revs the engine and peels out of the parking lot, waving out the window as he goes.

“I can deal with my own shit, thanks!” Skov yells after him as he leaves. He’s gonna pretend he’s not mad; he can fight his own damn battles and he doesn’t need Kavinsky threatening his dates. _Especially_ when said date has yet to do anything remotely threatening to Skov. “I _belong_ to nobody!” he adds, fingers twitching like he wants to choke something. To Swan, he begins to say “Sorry about-” but then he catches the look on Swan’s face and his blood runs cold. Swan’s eyes are narrowed and his lips are curled into something that’s more a threat than it is a grin and everything about him is tensed up and raging.

It’s terrifyingly attractive.

“How about we come back and tag this shit later,” he suggests slowly. Swan turns to him, still electrically charged and dangerous. “And right now, we pull your car behind the community center and follow up on last night.”

And they do.

At first it’s awkward and hilarious, and Skov’s shirt gets caught on his snakebites when he tries to take it off, and there’s not enough room in the back seat and it’s too damn hot out, but Swan runs his fingers over the lines of Skov’s hand-done tattoos, and Skov watches Swan go crazy as he undresses him slowly, unbuttons his uniform shirt and teases him by making him wait while he carefully folds his clothes and drapes them on the back of the driver’s seat.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Swan drawls, and Skov worries he’s lost interest, but then Swan’s got one hand on his neck, pushing him down onto his back, and the other hand is pinning his wrists above his head. Swan leans in and kisses along Skov’s jawline, and then without any warning at all he bites, _hard_. Skov tries to choke back a whine, but then as Swan works his way kissing and nipping his way down Skov’s body he thinks, _who’s gonna hear it but us, anyway_?

Skov’s not used to letting someone else take charge like this; usually he puts himself very much in control for his own sake. But Swan seems eager, more than eager, really, and more sure of himself than most of the boys Skov’s slept with. Usually his Aglionby hookups follow a simple pattern that goes pretty much like this:

Lights off. Pants off. Cute boy on his back on some flat surface, and then Skov rides him ‘til he gets off. Very little variation involved, partially to keep the confounding variables out of his graph, partially because a lot of Aglionby boys have never fucked a boy before and are perfectly willing to let Skov take the wheel. If they _do_ take charge, they usually change their minds pretty fast, because pretty much all of them have never fucked a boy with a vag.

It’s okay. They get used to it pretty fast. Nobody ever seems to care _what_ pronouns you call yourself once you’re riding their dick, so long as you do a good job of it.

Swan is already a statistical outlier by virtue of the fact that not only is he not just sitting back and letting sex happen, he’s actively unbuttoning Skov’s jeans with his teeth, holy mother. Swan slides Skov’s jeans off his legs, which is an ordeal in and of itself because _skinny jeans_. Once those are off, Skov shimmies out of his underwear and props himself up to kiss Swan again, sharp and rough and really more teeth than anything else but it’s good, it’s good. It’s everything it’s supposed to be and it’s goddamn great.

Swan breaks the kiss with a smirk and pushes Skov back down, one hand braced on his collarbone and the other spreading his legs apart.

And then he freezes, and sort of makes a concerned pouty kind of face, and Skov blinks. Dammit.

“You alright, man?” he asks, and Swan nods enthusiastically.

“Yeah, no, yeah. Fine, I’m totally fine. Are you fine?”

“What do you mean, am I fine? I’m doing great. What’d you stop for?”

Swan stares out the window dramatically, like he’s in a goddamn movie or something. “I just. I haven’t ever. What am I allowed to –or not allowed to –I don’t wanna freak you out, or-”

Skov removes Swan’s hand from his chest and sits up. He’d been looking forward to submission for once, but he has a feeling they’ve got the future for that. With one hand on each of Swan’s shoulders, he looks dead in his eyes and says, “If I was uncomfortable fucking with the parts I’ve got as opposed to the ones I’m supposed to have, do you really think I’d have taken off my pants for you?”

“Well, no, but.” Swan bites his lip and knits his eyebrows together. “I thought that was like a thing, like. One of the boxes you check off, when you say, _yep, I hate my junk,_ like I thought that was like step one of being trans is you don’t like the hand you got dealt. The body you got dealt. You know.”

Skov sighs. “Yes. I mean, yeah, that _is_ –but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have sex with the parts I’ve got right now, right?”

“Well, of course not,” says Swan, and Skov frowns defiantly at him and straddles his lap.

“I might not like having a chick’s body, but as long as I’m _stuck_ in it I’m gonna exploit what feels good about it.”

“Exploit it,” Swan repeats with a nod as Skov grinds down against his erection.

“So here’s what’s gonna happen,” he says, dragging his nails harshly up Swan’s sides and then over his shoulders to wrap his arms around Swan’s neck. “You’re gonna quit waffling about this, because I can take care of myself. I’m gonna be in control, so you don’t have to worry about messing up with me or anything.”

“Right,” says Swan, swallowing hard. “Don’t want Kavinsky nailing me to a road sign or whatever.”

“The only one nailing you right now is me, pretty boy.”

Swan grins like infinity, and Skov kisses him breathless, and they fuck, and it’s great. It could be better, and Skov thinks that if Swan hadn’t lost the nerve at the thought of hurting him somehow it would’ve been, but there’s a next time for that. Skov can feel it in the way they hold each other’s gazes at the end that there’s gonna be a next time.

After, they lay half-dressed in the back of Swan’s car, sweaty and gross and mumbling bitchy complaints about the late-summer heat.

“Sorry,” Swan murmurs into the crook of Skov’s neck. “Air conditioning’s been on the fritz.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, I’m pissed off about it. It’s hot as the inside of Satan’s ass.”

“How do you know? Been in Satan’s ass recently, have you?”

“Are you implying I’ve fucked Kavinsky?” Swan jokes.

Skov snickers. “Ah, he’s not the _Devil,_ really. He’s more of a, a, a trickster god. Like Puck or something.”

“Is that Shakespeare?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s eviler than that, then. Like Loki.”

“Marvel Loki or mythological Loki?”

“Mythological,” Swan replies.

“Mythological Loki fucked a horse,” Skov mentions.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Nah, man, K has higher standards than that.”

Later, much later, after they’ve re-dressed themselves and made good on their other decision to graffiti the playground, Swan drives Skov home and drops him off without a question when he requests to be let out of the car three blocks away. Through the open front window, Swan says, “So… d’you wanna do this again sometime?”

“Fuck in the back of your car?”

“Well, that too.” Swan nods. “I meant the rest of it. The date-y bit.”

The date-y bit.  Skov bites his lip hard. Thus far, the date-y bit looks remarkably like the beginnings of an epic friendship, and that’s okay with him.

“That too,” he says. “Definitely.” He looks around conspiratorially, and then adds, “I think K’s having another party in a couple weekends. You should come.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Swan says automatically.

“Why not?”

Swan purses his lips. He gazes out over the dashboard, arms braced atop the steering wheel, and he lets out a long breath. It occurs to Skov that quite a lot seems to go through this boy’s head, but not much of it ever sees the light of day. It could be a tempest in there and he’d never know. “I don’t-” Swan starts to say, but he hesitates, and he sighs again, and he shakes his head.

Sensing he’s suddenly treading on thin ice, Skov backpedals and says “Hey, man, it’s totally okay. I get it. You and K have hateboners the size of the Empire State Building, I get you don’t wanna aggravate that.” Truth be told, Skov has the feeling that’s not the case at all. Kavinsky doesn’t _hate_ Swan, he just finds it easy to get a rise out of him, and Swan probably doesn’t give a fuck if Kavinsky’s at the party or not, considering he came to the last one. But whatever reasons Swan doesn’t want to discuss, Skov isn’t gonna make him. He knows plenty about keeping shit to yourself. “Maybe another time, then. Text me?”

Swan smiles, and it might be grateful, but he’s hiding it well. “I’ll text you.”

And he drives away, and Skov watches him go until he can’t see his death-white car anymore, and then he walks down the block to the library. In the library bathroom, he grudgingly changes out of his clothes and puts on the blousey shit that’ll keep his parents from bitching that he looks like a dyke. He stuffs his beat-up Vans in his messenger bag and puts on flats, and then he walks the rest of the way home with his normal life hidden in his backpack.

This is the part of his day he hates the most.

He doesn’t have to pretend anything about himself around Swan, or around Kavinsky and the crew, and they’re the first people on earth who didn’t ask questions or challenge him about it. Skov strongly suspects that none of them actually give a fuck that he’s trans, because they don’t exactly give a fuck what _anyone_ does so long as it makes them happier about the time they have to spend on Earth. He’s just grateful he’s got folks he can go to that he doesn’t have to hide in front of.

Skov wishes he had the money for Aglionby, because then he could spend his life there with Swan and K and all of them, being himself, instead of at home, pretending to be a girl. He wishes for a lot of things, but he doesn’t often get them.

He gets home and goes upstairs without saying hi to his sisters or his parents, and he shuts the door of his room. Lights off. Clothes off. Ace bandage binder stays on, for now –the internet tells him he’ll hurt himself; his common sense knows he can’t order a proper binder online without stealing his parents’ credit card, and he can’t risk that.

He puts on his pajama shorts and he climbs up onto the windowsill, and he stares out at the town. Somewhere out there, the other boys are fucking around, ignoring their responsibilities and partying it up in the Aglionby dorms and doing whatever the fuck they please, and Skov tries not to be jealous, he _tries_ , but god. It’s so damn hard.

    

A few hours later, ten minutes to midnight, Skov decides he’d like to do something about it after all. He pulls a shoebox out from under his bed and stares at its contents for a long while. Some of them are completely benign and will totally get him what he’s after –sweet incenses and fairy-colored crystals and weird little herbs in jars. It’s the other stuff he’s always careful about; the black-painted jars and the vacuum sealed bags of poisonous things from the woods and the rubber gloves so he doesn’t mess himself up working with them. The little black book full of threat and terror enough to rival Pandora’s Box. Black salt and broken glass, needles and blood. Something wicked, something rotten, the monster under Skov’s bed lurking in wait for him to unleash. Cursework.

Laying a curse is easy. Even moreso when you’ve got Joseph Kavinsky in your corner to hook you up with even the most esoteric and illegal ingredients. The temptation is always there, prickling under Skov’s skin like fire, like fate. It would be _so easy_ to hex his problems away.

Knowing how to curse isn’t difficult. Knowing _when_ is. Skov considers it very much like being the only country in possession of a nuclear weapon; he has a tactical advantage and the element of surprise, and it would solve _all_ his problems _so fast_. But he knows, like all the scientists knew at the end of the Second World War, that he’d never be able to un-drop that bomb.

Skov tears his thoughts away from the little black notebook of curses and starts unloading more innocent things from the shoebox on the open windowsill. It’s a waxing moon in Capricorn, so this is as good a time for this as any. He lights a stick of sandalwood incense, and with his pocketknife he inscribes the word _freedom_ on the side of a tapered purple candle. He anoints the candle with cinnamon oil, places it in a holder on the windowsill, and lights the wick.

Asking for magical help with getting the fuck out of this house isn’t necessarily a bad idea. He usually tries to avoid spells for shit he thinks he has some modicum of control over to begin with, but this is getting close to the end of frustration and the beginning of desperation. All he wants is to get out and be himself at any cost. All he wants is his freedom. He doesn’t care how anymore, he just wants to break free and be himself without having to worry.

He watches the candle melt through the letters he carved. He feels a rush in the air like the whole of Henrietta is whispering, whispering, and he thinks he almost hears real words on the wind. He can’t make out what they are, but he gets the distinct impression it was something he wasn’t necessarily supposed to hear, and he just happened to be listening in by chance. He closes his eyes, trying to hear it again, even just the edge of a whisper, the slightest impression of a voice, but it’s already gone.

He watches the candle burn down until there’s none of it left but a puddle of wax on the windowsill, and he thinks the spell ought to help him at least gather up the courage to run away if it ever comes to that. Maybe it’ll even win him a way out, all expenses paid. That’d be nice. He could spirit himself away and… and live with Kavinsky or something. Or with Swan –even though they’ve only just met, it’s a nice fantasy. So long as he isn’t _here_ , in this box, trying to fit the key to his life in the wrong sort of lock.

_God,_ he thinks, _let me outta here,_ and he blows the ash from the incense out the window and into the evening breeze.

There is no possible way, he thinks, that the spell could possibly come back to bite him in the ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> witch!Skov? witch!Skov. *nods enthusiastically*  
> I suppose I should've mentioned that the other other description of this fic could've been "the one where the Dream Pack is just as uncannily magic as the Raven Boys and Blue, but mostly they use it for illegal substances and fucking with people"  
> also don't ask why they eat lunch on the roof? i could be like "them being on the roof symbolizes the precarious nature of the situation in which they are about to find themselves" or "they're on the roof cos they're edgy fucks" but probably it's because i'm anime trash and anime protags always eat lunch on the roof and i started writing the scene before i remembered this wasn't an anime and american kids don't do that
> 
> also i promise this is gonna get more fucked up eventually i /want/ it to get more fucked up im just trying to build up to it/this is my first time writing characters remotely like this and it's taking me a bit to get used to
> 
> anyway, this chapter's song title is Dangerous by Big Data
> 
> as I already know the songs for next chapter (there are two because reasons), I'm gonna get y'all psyched up for it: Chapter 4 is gonna be Crystalised by The XX and Lonely Boy by the Black Keys. idk how much that actually tells you about its content but yknow. Get psyched or something.


	4. Burning, and Other Misfortune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thirty seconds before posting this i changed the song title i wanted to use for the chapter oops

It’s four in the morning when Prokopenko hears the distinctive clicking that means someone’s trying to open his window from the outside. He rolls out of bed, half asleep, and blearily unlatches the window. He draws back the blinds as the window is yanked open, and Kavinsky climbs into his room. He wastes no time throwing himself face-first onto Proko’s bed with an exasperated groan. Proko dodges as he kicks his sneakers off; one tumbles loudly into a stack of CDs; the other flies across the dorm room and smacks the wall above Jiang’s head.

“You’re lucky he sleeps like the dead,” says Proko. He can hear Jiang’s music leaking out of his forgotten headphones from across the room. He sets himself on the mattress next to Kavinsky. Kavinsky doesn’t reply; he buries his face further in Proko’s sheets and tosses his phone over his shoulder for Proko to look at. On the screen is an open email, from an Ilina Kavinsky.

“Your cousin?” Proko wonders. “Aunt?”

“Just read it,” Kavinsky mumbles into the pillow. Proko sits down on his bed next to Kavinsky, and skims the contents of the email. Catching a few choicely unsettling words, he scrolls back up to the top and reads it over again in detail. And then he reads it again, and he drags his hand down his face in disbelief, and drops Kavinsky’s phone onto his back.

It’s quiet, the kind of quiet that only happens in the soft-focus hours of the morning. Prokopenko shoves Kavinsky over so he can lay back down, shuts his eyes, and breathes in deeply through his nose, trying to handle the implications and expectations and god, he wishes he wasn’t awake, but he is.

Eventually he says, “Is this a confession?”

Kavinsky jabs him half-heartedly in the side. “ _The confession_ was me asking you to help me get rid of my dad’s _body_. Jeez, Proko, did you seriously not get that?”

“K, nobody in their right mind will just casually accept that their best friend is literally in the mob. Not even me.” Not like Proko’s been spending the entire summer trying to formulate alternative explanations in his imagination, or anything. Not like he’s spent the past two months lying awake at night, wondering if Kavinsky’s father was the first person he ever killed. It’s not like Proko _wanted_ to jump right on board and believe that all the rumors whispered in the dark corners of Aglionby Academy were true all along.

Proko supposes that at least now he’s got mafia connections or something.

“ _I_ am not literally in the mob,” Kavinsky scoffs, mocking Proko’s tone. “Fuck the mob.” And, leaving it at that, Kavinsky sighs theatrically and rolls over on his side so he can bury his face in Proko’s shirt instead of the pillow.

Proko runs a hand through Kavinsky’s hair. He’s not showing it, but he’s upset, and Proko can tell. There’s no visual indication beyond the burying-face-in-shirt –he’s is notorious for hiding his feelings– but even Kavinsky wouldn’t be able to pass off as totally okay if he got woken up at four in the morning by an email telling him that an entire Bulgarian crime family isn’t so much investigating whether he’s guilty of murder as they are already calculating how much cement it’ll take to sink his skinny little body to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Kavinsky sighs again, heavier this time, and shaking a bit, and it’s all Proko can do not to wrap his arms around him. There’s only so close he can get to Kavinsky before he gets fidgety. He hates feeling trapped. He’ll only allow it if he’s the one that starts it, and so Proko has to wait until he asks before he can try to save him from himself.

He knows he’ll never ask. Kavinsky will go down in flames and if anyone offers to run and grab the fire extinguisher, he’ll pretend he can’t feel himself burning. He’s always had more pride than is good for him.

“K.” Proko strokes his hair again. “You gonna deal with this? You can’t let this get to you.”

“If it _gets_ to me,” Kavinsky says testily, batting Proko’s hand away, “I’ll die. And not in a pretty way either, y’hear? It’s not gonna be a grand exit with a soundtrack and fancy lights. It’ll be my brains splattered on some back road somewhere, or my still-living body cemented into a wall –did you know they did that? Al Capone’s guys used to cement people into the foundations of buildings. I don’t wanna be cemented into some building foundation. I’d be _terrible_ foundation.”

“Yeah, you’re too unstable,” Proko muses sarcastically, and Kavinsky elbows him hard in the ribs. “Dude, calm down. They’re not gonna getcha. Right, Jiang?” Proko calls across the room. He picks up a book from his nightstand and tosses it at Jiang’s sleeping form, half-hanging off his bed. “If the mafia comes for K, we’re gonna fight ‘em.”

Jiang’s response is to roll over in his sleep, mumbling incoherently. Proko thinks he’ll take that as a solid “maybe.”

“You’re gonna fight trained hit men for me.” Kavinsky scoffs. He sits up and stares hard at Proko; his expression is lost in the darkness. “You’re fucking with me.”

Proko thinks he is absolutely not fucking with him. He thinks he would honest to god fight a trained hit man for Kavinsky. Probably multiple trained hit men. At this point, he isn’t sure what he _wouldn’t_ do for him at this point, and frankly he thinks Kavinsky would probably do just as much for him. There would be a lot of bitching and moaning, but he’d come through.

As far as Proko’s concerned, they’re in it for the long haul. Kavinsky literally asked him to help burn his father’s corpse in the backyard and ditch the ashes in the river. And before that, when someone thought it was funny to slip something weird in Proko’s drink at a party in the next town over, Kavinsky ran ‘em over. And before _that_ , the first time they raced and Kavinsky fucked up the shift from third to fourth gear when it really mattered and spun out on an icy road, and Proko had to pull him out of the wreckage of what turned out to be Identical Mitsubishi #4, and Kavinsky had forced the paramedics to let Proko ride in the ambulance with him even though they didn’t even know each other’s names yet. And a million other little things in between that drew them to each other and stitched them together by the skin.

If that’s not love, Proko doesn’t know what is.

He grabs Kavinsky by the back of his tanktop –he drove over in his boxers, god –and pulls him back down to the bed. “Dude, sleep, okay?”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to get high and forget this is happening.” Kavinsky struggles free of Proko’s grip on his shirt and sits back up, knees curled up to his chest and arms crossed atop them in indignance.

“I know.” And this is the point, when Kavinsky starts getting belligerent, that Proko uses his size as a tactical advantage. He hooks an arm around Kavinsky’s ribcage and pulls him back down. Kavinsky struggles a bit, and knees him in the stomach, and gets unnecessarily worked up until Jiang wakes up and throws the book Proko launched earlier back at him. Eventually he gives up. Proko is nothing if not persistent, and what he’s persistent about is keeping his friends from dying. Kavinsky wouldn’t sleep at all if nobody reminded him to. He gives in with a sigh and curls into a petulant ball in Proko’s arms.

“Fuck off,” he murmurs into Proko’s shirt.

“We’ll deal with your family shit once you've slept, okay?” Proko replies.

“Fuck off,” Kavinsky repeats. “If you want me to sleep, lemme fucking sleep.”

 ...

Swan and Skov keep seeing each other regularly, like it’s something they’ve been doing for years. They meet, they smoke, they do stupid shit and they repeat it all again a few days later. It’s almost routine, after a week; Swan picks Skov up at Nino’s and they drive around until one of them comes up with something to do. Ten days knowing each other and they’ve seen every single movie in Henrietta’s sole dismal theater, and had sex in the back row of it twice. They’ve broken into four abandoned houses. They’ve retaliated against the urban art-hating community group and drawn a gorgeously obscene mural on the side of the community center building. Swan’s almost told Skov three or four times that the reason he keeps graffiti-tagging shit is because he’d like _something_ of himself to be left behind if he ever decides to exit stage left for good.

Swan has never told _anyone_ that, and it’s making him concerned. If he’s not legit falling for Skov, he’s at the very least making friends. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to himself or to Skov or the feelings between them when he inevitably comes back around to an Apathy Phase and the whole world greys itself out again. It’s happened before; he thought he was getting better, he thought the meds were doing something for once, and then all of a sudden they weren’t and all of a sudden there was one more pretty punk on a short but distinguished list of pretty punks back in Chicago with a nihilistically depressed ex-friend or ex-boyfriend named Xavier Swan.

He doesn’t want Skov to be the first of however many exes left behind in Henrietta. He wants something to work for once, dammit, and he knows he can’t just bottle his negativity up, and he knows it’s not gonna be abated just because he’s got a cute boy spending time with him, but it feels like it should be helping. It feels like he oughta feel better by now.

Also, bless Skov’s pointy little heart, he doesn’t deserve to have to deal with Swan’s shit. He’s got enough shit of his own to deal with.

Swan stares himself insistently down in the bathroom mirror. He runs a hand through his hair and pretends there aren’t belligerent bags under his eyes. He sighs. He sighs again and methodically dismantles his shaving razor to jam the blades down the sink drain where he can’t get them back, because that’s the kind of morning it is. He vows not to give Skov trouble, he takes his meds, he messes his hair up on purpose, and he overthinks everything until he’s physically ill all the way to school.

In third period History he gets assigned a partner for a group project and he promptly decides he wants to bludgeon himself to death with his stupid massive textbook. Group projects are not his style to begin with; he can’t stand compromising his ideas with others’, and moreover he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the work properly. Nobody could possibly reach his standards of a job well done, even at a school like Aglionby. His belligerent perfectionism knows no bounds and no peers. Worse, on a day like today, unbidden and undesired human interaction is going to drive him to the point of breaking things. Possibly those things will be windows, or other people’s noses. He’s not picky.

As if to add insult to injury, his assigned partner for the project is Jiang, and the most recent significant interaction he’s had with Jiang is the nearly-getting-Molotov-cocktailed one. With a resigned groan of distress, Swan meets Jiang’s eyes across the classroom in an acknowledgement of mutual distaste. Or, he tries to; Jiang has his nose in his sketchbook, hidden in his lap behind his History textbook, and his earbuds are still in. He might not have even heard the list of group partners.

The class disperses to go start their work in the library, or more likely to ditch class and fuck around. Swan slouches his way down the hall with Jiang at his side, which means Kavinsky and Prokopenko are also tagging along. Proko and Jiang chat aimlessly about something Swan’s not paying attention to, but Kavinsky is uncharacteristically quiet. Swan considers leaving him alone, but apparently he considers too long because just as he’s about to turn away and stifle his curiosity, Kavinsky says, “The fuck are _you_ staring at?”

Swan looks away, and feigns interest in the stupid fancy portraits of previous school heads that line the wall.

“No, fuck you, what’s your damage?” Kavinsky insists, and then all of a sudden he’s in Swan’s personal space. Like, right up in it, nose to nose –or, rather, nose to chin; Kavinsky is satisfyingly shorter than him by at least three inches. Either way, Swan stops dead in the center of the hallway to avoid running into him.

“Get out of my face,” he says. Kavinsky doesn’t.

“Listen, you obtuse pasty asshole,” says Kavinsky, “I am in one of the most unholy foul moods I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing-”

“Join the damn club,” Swan replies. He puts his hands on Kavinksy’s shoulders and shifts him none too gently to the side so he can pass him. Kavinsky throws a leg out and catches him by the ankle, tripping him. He doesn’t quite fall; he stumbles into a wall and drops all his shit.

Later, Swan will wonder what came over him; now, though, he’s literally seeing red. The world is tinged with blood, blood pounding in his ears, blood coursing in his veins, blood on his knuckles from punching Kavinsky in the jaw. The grim satisfaction of watching him fall to the ground. The whole thing lasts less than a moment, barely a second, and then Jiang has a hand over his mouth like he’s gonna be sick and Kavinsky is pushing himself shakily up off the floor, and Swan can’t move because Prokopenko has his arms held behind his back and even if he didn’t Swan would be frozen in time replaying the instant with increasing disgust and glory.

Kavinsky picks himself up off the ground, still shaking. Swan had thought it was adrenaline, or that he might be truly injured, but the punch knocked his sunglasses off and now his eyes lock onto Swan’s like a laser. Swan sees in Kavinsky’s eyes the same loathing he had to see in the mirror this morning, the same unearthly emptiness, the same broken rage. In that moment, Swan feels a horrifying pang of sympathy and regret, and he gets the strangest impression that the pair of them are simultaneously closer and infinitely further away than any two other people on the planet. It’s unreal, it’s sickening, and it doesn’t wash away until Kavinsky stoops to retrieve his sunglasses and releases Swan from his stare.

“Fuck this,” he mutters. “Guys, c’mon, I’m gonna go do a line or three in the basement.”

“The basement is _hella_ rank,” Jiang says as Proko releases Swan’s arms. “I’m not coming.”

“Suit yourself, nerd,” says Kavinsky, and if Swan hadn’t just accidentally stared through his eyes into the fucking void, he’d think the whole thing had blown over already. But he thinks he can hear Kavinsky covering for the fact that he’s still shaken from the punch. He’s doing a good job, but he’s still covering nonetheless.

Proko helps Swan sort his notebooks out and hands them back to him in a messy stack before he jogs down the hall after Kavinsky. Swan purses his lips, wipes Kavinsky’s blood off his knuckles, and steadies his breathing before storming in the direction of the library, Jiang slouching after him.

The Aglionby library is almost annoyingly vast and even more annoyingly cluttered. This is partially because it’s curated and re-shelved by an ever-deteriorating fleet of student volunteers, and partially because of one of Aglionby’s other recent additions to the student body, one Richard Campbell Gansey III, who transferred in a few months before Swan. He seems to be perpetually engaged in the kind of work one would expect from a Ph. D thesis paper, and as such there is always a manufactured island of pushed-together tables, cluttered with books and maps and photocopied papers and journals, with a handwritten sign perched precariously atop it all which reads “do not re-shelve, please.”

The table island is at present populated only by Ronan Lynch, who is asleep with his face in a pile of books; Gansey must be elsewhere in the library. Jiang tiptoes over with a completely blank expression and takes several photos of Lynch, which he then texts to Kavinsky.

“Dude, what the heck?” says Swan. Jiang’s phone buzzes and, totally deadpan, he holds it up for Swan to see; Kavinsky has texted back a line of exclamation points and a suggestion to put Lynch’s fingers in a cup of hot water so he pisses himself. Swan feels a brief kinship with Ronan Lynch as a fellow target of Kavinsky’s mirthful antagonism, but then he remembers that he’s seen Lynch and Kavinsky pass each other in the hall and make a very specific kind of eye contact, and he thinks that perhaps they’re not in such a similar position after all. 

Project assignment sheet in hand, Swan methodically tears books off the shelves and hands them to Jiang to carry off to a couch in front of a high-arched window. Once they’ve collected enough of a good starting point –the Revolutionary War only has so many beginnings, after all –Swan whips out a pad of sticky notes, a sleek ballpoint pen, and his laptop, and cracks open book number one.

Jiang roots through his beat-up backpack for an equally-beat-up sketchbook and a mechanical pencil held together with duct tape, and starts doodling absently. Swan can hear what sounds like rap leaking out of his earbuds.

“I’m not doing this whole report on my own, asshole,” he says. Jiang pretends not to notice, or maybe his music really is that loud. Insisting to himself that he really needs to pick his battles better, Swan returns to book number one for a good half the class and loses himself in bookmarking important paragraphs and copying down important dates and names. Unfortunately, when he looks back up, Jiang is still doodling in his sketchbook, showing absolutely no indication of contributing to the report.

“Dude,” Swan insists irritably, picking a book off the stack and shoving it in Jiang’s direction.

“We have a whole two weeks for this project,” Jiang says amiably, violently jabbing at his paper until the lead of his pencil snaps. Feigning disinterest, Swan casually leans over to see what’s in Jiang’s sketchbook. He immediately regrets the decision; whatever he expected Jiang to be drawing, it definitely wasn’t a gruesome cartoon self-portrait of Jiang taking a bite out of a bloody human eyeball.

Swan considers that Jiang may be a completely different kind of dangerous than Kavinsky, and wonders if he ought to be more friendly. In the case that Jiang turns out to be a school shooter, he’d rather have been on good enough terms with him that he isn’t slated for divine judgement.

“Rude,” says Jiang, even though Swan hasn’t said anything. As if sensing Swan’s bewilderment, he adds, “You think _so fucking loudly_.”

“What,” says Swan, but Jiang doesn’t offer any further information. Swan shakes his head, assumes Jiang must’ve turned down Kavinsky’s offer to go do lines in the basement because he’s already high as balls, and instead turns his attention to the next book in the stack.

Jiang doesn’t say anything else until the end of the class period, when Swan forces half their books on him because each of them can only check out so many. While they wait for the librarian to scan them all through, Jiang turns casually to Swan and says, “I think K likes you.”

Swan laughs so loudly the librarian shushes him.

“No,” says Jiang, “I mean he _likes_ you. He thinks you’re entertaining.”

“Great, that’s terrifying,” says Swan, “considering the fact that other things he finds entertaining are getting cross-faded and destroying his own property. Also, did you not notice the part where he looked at me like he wanted to strip my skin off?”

“He thinks you’re interesting and he wants you to come sit with us at lunch,” Jiang insists.

“Don’t you sit on the roof?”

“Yeah, why?”

“He doesn’t want me to sit with you at lunch. He wants to push me off the damn roof.”

“No, trust me, he thinks you’re one of the only interesting people at this whole damn school, and I’m inclined to agree.”

“Is that so,” Swan says sardonically. He collects his books off the library counter and kneels down to shove them all into his backpack.

“Yep,” says Jiang, crouching next to him. “Although, you should think more politely about people you’re around,” he adds with a smile. He claps Swan on the shoulder. “If I ever _do_ become a school shooter, I’m coming after you first just out of spite, asshole.” He winks. Swan stares at him as he sweeps the rest of the books into his own bag and ambles out of the library. He leaves Swan staring after him, feeling like he’s been hit in the face with a frying pan.

“What the fuck,” he says quietly, because what else do you say when a creepy pyromaniac druggie kid tells you he’s read your mind? “What the _fuck_.”

The librarian clicks her tongue at him. “ _Language_ , young man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title song is the same as the fic title: Burning, and Other Misfortune by Bogsey and the Argonauts
> 
> ok so two things i need to say real quick
> 
> one- finals week is coming at me like a freight train and i have ten days to do like a month's worth of work, so don't expect chapter five until at least May 10th because then I'll be home and not suffering from work overload
> 
> two- somehow i ended up with a real-world internship that pays this summer, so while i was hoping to get to say "party on guys the fic is gonna be updating faster the next three months cos NO SCHOOL," the reality is that i'm gonna be proofreading manga and bitching about untranslatable puns and idioms at Kodansha for most of the summer, so if anything, the update rate for this fic is probably gonna stay about the same :P oh well
> 
> next chapter title is Planetary (Go!), probably


	5. Planetary (Go)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my god i am so fucking sorry you guys this is like a full month later than i intended
> 
> anyway. extra trigger warnings specific to this chapter: some references to off-screen transphobia, dubiously consensual drug use, brief reckless driving that implies even worse reckless driving habits

“So Swan thinks you’re a psychopath,” Jiang announces to Kavinsky when he makes it to the roof at lunch. Prokopenko is in the principal’s office, talking the faculty down from assigning him and Kavinsky mandatory sessions with the counselor after getting caught fucking around in the basement. Jiang seats himself precariously on the edge of the roof, legs hanging off over the gutter. He carefully pushes his headphones down around his neck, and then he and Kavinsky lean back to back at the peak of the roof, balancing each other precariously.

“I _am_ a psychopath,” says Kavinsky. Jiang can feel him reveling in the thought of being special in a way that’s recognized. He thinks he ought to burst his ego before it gets too big.

“Psychopath isn’t a proper psychiatric diagnosis, asshole. They took it out of the-”

“Does it look like I care about psychiatrics? Shit, what am I then?” And there’s genuine concern in him, no matter how hard he keeps it out of his tone. He wants assurance, he wants to know there’s someone out there that knows what the hell he is.

“You’re a fuckboy.”

Jiang has never told Kavinsky that he can feel everything other people feel. Kavinsky’s own feelings included. He can taste his emotions, can even latch onto thoughts if he tries hard enough. But he knows Kavinsky knows.

“No, seriously, asshole.”

And he knows Kavinsky keeps up his ease and his sleaze and his cavalier swagger regardless, even when they’re alone, because it’s a point of pride on his part. Nothing can touch him.

“A sociopath.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Almost,” Jiang says. “Except one is a legit word and the other is what edgy emo weeaboo fucks think it’d be cool to pretend they are.”

“I thought psychopath implied violence,” Kavinsky points out, proving yet again to Jiang that however much like a delinquent he acts, his brain is never off. He thinks. He just doesn’t act like he thinks.

“It does. You just can’t get a professional diagnosis. Anyway, Swan thinks you wanna push him off the roof.”

In the same tone that he affirmed his psychopathy, Kavinsky says “I would totally push him off the roof. He’s an uppity bitch.”

“ _You’re_ an uppity bitch.”

“I’m gonna push _you_ off the roof.”

And that is just the nature of things between them. If Kavinsky never brings it up, then Jiang will never confirm it, and they’ll just go on pretending they don’t know that Jiang can taste everything that crosses Kavinsky’s mind. Jiang will know everything Kavinsky’s scared to show the world, and Kavinsky will keep acting like he’s fucking Atlas and never let anyone know he doesn’t want to hold up the planet on his own.

And meanwhile Jiang will sit quietly and suffer as the world writhes around him, everyone feeling everything _so much_ , and the one person who knows will never acknowledge it. Never give him somewhere to vent, someone to hold onto. As long as Kavinsky refuses to let him in, Jiang will be all alone with the rest of the world in his head.

“What’re you gonna do, though?” Jiang asks. “I mean, he’s kinda datingSkov. You might as well try and make good with him.”

“I don’t wanna make good with him. He hates me for no reason and I’d like to see him get what’s coming to him.”

Jiang knows this isn’t true. Well, the part about Swan hating Kavinsky is true. The “for no reason” part is up for debate. It depends how easily offended Swan is by things like nearly getting run over by a white Mitsubishi on his first official day at Aglionby. Or like slipping one of K’s experimental dream-drugs into Swan’s food at lunch on his second official day at Aglionby and videotaping the (admittedly very amusing) results. Or like Kavinsky’s decision on Swan’s third official day to nickname him “Ugly Duckling” and refuse to stop calling him as such until he snapped and punched out a window and got detention. Or-

“He can’t take a joke.” Kavinsky huffs indignantly. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“He just isn’t used to your sense of humor.” Jiang turns around and pats Kavinsky on the shoulder. “Invite him to come chill with us,” he suggests. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

Kavinsky stares at him, one eyebrow raised.

“He’s interesting. Even if he _does_ think I’m a school shooter.”

 “He thinks you’re _what_?”

“Never mind.”

Kavinsky swivels in place on the rooftop and squints critically at Jiang. With a wry smile he says, “You’re almost creepy enough that that’s believable, man.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

     

So Jiang texts Prokopenko and Prokopenko texts Skov, Skov texts Kavinsky and Kavinsky gives in and texts all of them back: _fine fine jfc I’ll go get more booze ok fine_. Kavinsky dreams more alcohol, and he dreams more drugs, and he dreams a bunch of shit he’s never seen before but he supposes if he only imagines basic parameters it should mutate into something that has really interesting side effects when ingested. And then on Friday afternoon, he ditches school early to pick up Skov from Mountain View.

If anybody thinks anything of the Thief in all its glory pulling up in front of the crappier of the two public high schools in town, they don’t say anything. Or maybe they do, but it’s whispered conspiratorially, and it’ll catch the rumor mill ablaze. Kavinsky revels in the thought of people talking about him, so long as every rumor is wilder than the last. Even if he’s not there to see it, he wants the legend of Joseph Kavinsky burned into his wake.

Skov hops off the curb in front of the school and into the passenger seat of the car. Kavinsky definitely sees people whispering. Some brown-skinned chick who works at Nino’s is giving him the Eye, so he lifts his sunglasses just long enough to shoot her a retaliatory wink. She scoffs at him and storms away.

“Dude, don’t mess with _her_ ,” says Skov as he fastens his seatbelt. “She’s the town psychic’s daughter.”

“What, you think she’ll put a curse on me?” Kavinsky cackles and wiggles his fingers like _woo-woo magic bullshit_ , so exciting. Then he considers that he himself is also fuck deep in woo-woo magic bullshit, and so, for that matter, is Skov, and he stops. Woo-woo magic bullshit is serious business, y’know.

“Maybe.” Skov shrugs. “Not sure what she’s capable of. Don’t chance it.”

“You curse people,” Kavinsky points out. Skov pouts.

“I try not to,” he says evasively.

“Can’t you un-curse people?” Kavinsky peers at Skov from under his sunglasses; Skov shrugs again. Clearly an aspect of magic bullshit he has yet to experiment with. Then again, Kavinsky doesn’t see why un-cursing people would even be a thing; if you curse ‘em in the first place, they probably deserved it.

Kavinsky revs the engine for the sole purpose of letting people hear him rev the engine, and then rockets out of the parking lot. Skov immediately tugs the seatbelt around himself. “Dude, trust me a little more, why don’tcha.” Kavinsky scoffs. Like, come on. He’s not gonna crash. He’s _way_ too good of a driver to crash, like eighty-five percent of the time. That’s only a fifteen percent chance of horrible death via dashboard shrapnel through the face, and that’s pretty good, considering.

“I just happen to know how many of these cars you’ve gone through.” He opens the glove compartment and pulls out the Thief’s manual, which contains no actual information about the car. Printed on every single page of the booklet is the number 23, because this is Identical Thief Mitsubishi number 23 and Kavinsky’s gotta keep track somehow.

Okay, so he’s keeping a body count of ruined Mitsubishis. So what. Anyone would, if they had that many to spare. It’s not like he’s got a running list of all the creative ways he’s killed them or anything like that.

Of course not.

“On the record,” says Skov as they approach Aglionby, “I think Swan may try to murder you for this. Like legitimately. And I think this is a bad idea.”

“Cool,” says Kavinsky. He swerves into the parking lot with a flourish and a grin.

“Off the record,” Skov adds, “I think this is a fucking riot of an idea and Swan is wonderful but he also needs to-”

“-remove the massive stick from his ass?”

“I was gonna say ‘make peace with you eventually’.”

“Same difference.”

“Eeh. Not exactly.”

Kavinsky finally grinds the car to a halt at the curb, where Proko and Swan are engaged in the world’s most awkward-looking conversation ever, and that’s only partially because they’re attempting to have said conversation while sitting on either side of Jiang, who has his headphones on and isn’t paying a single iota of attention to them. The other reason it’s awkward is because Swan doesn’t remember that he and Proko hooked up back at the Fourth of July party the first time they met, and Proko _really fucking remembers_. Kavinsky would laugh at the predicament, if not for the fact that Prokopenko belongs to him and he still kind of wants to shank Swan for not catching onto that.

But it’s a cordial kind of wanting-to-shank-him feeling. The kind of thing where yeah, you totally wanna stab a guy in the side, but then afterwards slap each other on the back and do that whole “I’m huggin’ ya but I’m hittin’ ya” thing that bros do, and having gotten the point across, put the whole thing behind you.

Kavinsky considers that it may take a couple rounds of getting shanked on both their parts to clear up whatever the hell makes Swan want his head on a pike in the quad, but he can work with that. He’s working off of worse with Lynch, anyway.

Proko waves to him from the side of the parking lot, and Kavinsky rolls down the window with a smirk.

“Get in, losers,” he says, “We-”

“Don’t you dare end that sentence the way I think you’re gonna end it,” says Skov. Kavinsky grins innocently.

“We got a party to start,” he amends. Proko and Jiang immediately make for the car. Swan, confused, ambles up to the open drivers’ side window and flicks his eyes between Kavinsky and Skov, looking for answers. Kavinsky beckons him into the car; Swan scowls.

“Look,” says Kavinsky, “Here’s the fucking deal. You,” –he points accusingly at Swan- “get in this car with me and the boys. We go back to my place, we get absolutely wasted, we run around town and fuck shit up, and you and I are gonna bury the hatchet or whatever. Capice?”

Swan frowns at Kavinsky and turns imperiously to Skov. “What,” he says, “is the meaning of this?”

In the back seat, Proko snickers. “Did you actually just say _what is the meaning of this_? Seriously?”

Skov shrugs. “I thought he summed it up pretty well. Basically come hang out and party with us tonight, is the gist of it.”

“I told you I don’t-” Swan begins, but he doesn’t get to finish that thought. Kavinsky snaps his fingers and Prokopenko steps back out of the car. Using his height as a weapon, he grabs Swan around the waist and hoists him bodily into the back seat of the Mitsubishi. There is much flailing. For all that Swan manages to look elegant and untouchable most of the time, there is no way to flail gracefully.

Swan is shocked silent for a full thirty seconds, which gives Skov enough time to lean into the back and fasten his seatbelt, Proko enough time to get between him and the door, and Kavinsky enough time to peel eagerly away from the curb and race down the road toward his place. When Swan finally regains the ability to form coherent thoughts and put them into words, he says, “I’m really not in the mood for this shit, Kavinsky.”

In the rearview mirror, Kavinsky makes eye contact with Swan, who is glaring not daggers but bastard swords at him. It’s pretty incredible, if he says so himself. Swan has the phrase “if looks could kill” down to a science.

“It wasn’t my idea. Blame Jiang,” he says.

“Fuck you, Jiang,” Swan complains, elbowing Jiang in the side.  

“Fuck _you_ ,” replies Jiang, elbowing right back. “You need to take like fifty chill pills. K, can you _get_ chill pills? Like, is that a thing that can exist?”

“Shit, why not?” Kavinsky whistles appreciatively. Chill pills, as a matter of fact, sound fantastic. They sound like everything he ever wanted. Sure, the coke makes him feel like he’s the goddamn king of Henrietta, and the occasional molly makes everything so much more pleasant, and the psychedelics make his world less faded and dull. But a chill pill would make reality so much more tolerable. If he could sit through a day without wanting to get up and move and run and tear off his own skin and shoot himself, he’d feel better than he ever had in his life.

“I don’t like parties,” Swan insists. “They offend my better judgement.”

“You have better judgement?” Proko laughs. “Dude, I’ve seen you party plenty.”

“Doesn’t mean I enjoy it. Kavinsky, stop the damn car and let me out.”

“Don’t think so.” Kavinsky winks at Swan in the rearview mirror. “You and me, we’re gonna get high as balls and beat the shit outta each other and it’ll be a great bonding experience. All the boys are doing it.”

“Let me the fuck out of this car.”

“Too late. Down the rabbit hole we go!”

                 

Swan has never been to Kavinsky’s house, and clearly he wasn’t expecting to visit it anytime soon, if ever. He goggles at everything: the outside of the house, a carbon copy of the rest of the McMansions on the street but impressive nonetheless; the entryway tiles that have galaxies frozen in them; the absurd houseplants that never need water; club-style furniture Kavinsky’s picked out of magazines and movies. Televisions in every room. Speakers on every wall. Cameras in every corner, a relic of his father that he can’t figure out how to completely remove without tearing out the walls, but that’s okay. The air smells like cotton candy and weed. The lights dim automatically when Kavinsky claps his hands. He’s remodeled the whole house out of a dream.

With one finger, he pushes Swan’s dropped jaw back up. “Impressed, asshole?”

Swan stares at it all, eyes wide and lips in a thin, thin line. Deadpan, he says, “I feel like I’m in a really high-budget porno.”

“That’s a hilarious idea. Guys,” he says, throwing one arm around Prokopenko’s neck and the other around Skov’s as they toss their backpacks down in the entry hall, “let’s film a porno.”

“Nah, son,” says Jiang.

“ _You_ don’t gotta be in it. You can film it.”

“I’d still have to see all of your bug-ugly naked asses.” Jiang makes a face like he swallowed a lemon.

“Hey, _I_ have a great ass,” Proko insists. “I work out.”

“Oh, fucking good for you.” Jiang drags his backpack into the bathroom and slams the door behind himself. Kavinsky, meanwhile, leads the other boys into the basement. Proko makes a beeline for the mini-bar while Skov throws himself into one of the movie theater seats and flicks the TV on to start up some video game. Swan is still gaping, although he’s trying to hide it. Kavinsky waves a hand in front of his eyes to make sure he hasn’t gone into a state of shock or something. Swan grabs his wrist and lowers his hand, glaring dubiously at him. Kavinsky puts on his most endearing smile, which he’s been told isn’t actually as endearing as he thinks it is, but is in fact more unsettling. He can’t see it, though.

“Having fun yet?”

“I still don’t know why you dragged me here,” Swan confesses, teeth gritted, nails digging into Kavinsky’s skin just enough to make things interesting.

“Could I be much clearer than-”

“Right, yeah, I _got_ the whole ‘let’s get fucked up and settle our differences’ bullshit. _Why?”_

Kavinsky twists his wrist out of Swan’s grip and throws his arm around Swan’s shoulders. “I already told you Skov belongs to me,” he says, and as Swan begins to sputter out some kind of protest, he adds, “So’s Jiang. And Proko. If you’re gonna insist on getting friendly with any of them, you better bet you’re getting used to me too, prettyboy. Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard there,” he says, dragging Swan down by the neck and tapping him on the forehead. “You play your cards right, I’ll keep _you_ too.”

“What,” Swan says sharply, but then Kavinsky lets him go and saunters over to the mini-bar, where Proko is busy sorting through the fridge for mixers.

“Taste this,” says Proko, shoving a wavy pink bottle at Kavinsky. It looks like it belongs in a sex toy store. It’s a dream drink, of course. Nothing is that pink naturally.

“Why?” he uncaps the bottle anyways and takes a swig. It tastes like sin. Not even one of the good sins, like pride or lust or something. It tastes like wrath and burns like it too on the way down. Kavinsky shivers.

“Because I have no idea what it is,” Proko replies.

“It’s fucking great is what it is,” he says, clapping the bottle back on the counter. “Skov! Play me at fuckin’ Mario Party. Let’s destroy our friendship!”

So they play Mario Party. And predictably they want to kill each other in under ten minutes; Skov takes one of Kavinsky’s stars and he throws the controller at him affectionately. Swan perches on the arm of Skov’s chair and peers imperiously at the screen; Proko fusses about the mini-bar and obsessively measures out drinks. When they do this at K’s place, they do it right, at least for the first half an hour or so until they’re too drunk to try and mix drinks. Then they go and run around Henrietta and screw with anything and anyone they run into.

About fifteen minutes in, Jiang reappears, dressed in all baggy black and looking like death. “What’s wrong with you?” Swan snorts at him.

“He’s going through his emo phase, let him rock,” Skov replies. Jiang shoves Skov and curls into the chair next to him.

“Fuck this game,” says Kavinsky, losing another star. “Grand Theft Auto. Let’s go.”

“You have the attention span of an infant,” Jiang scoffs. Kavinsky changes the game anyway and Proko saunters over with a bunch of drinks. He delivers something whiskey-scented and poison-black to Skov, something that’s probably 90 percent Red Bull to Jiang, and the entire pink wiggly bottle to Kavinsky.

He tries to hand Swan a drink too, but Swan hands it right back.

“Come on, dude,” Proko insists. He takes Swan’s hand and playfully wraps it around the glass. Swan fidgets uncomfortably and sets the glass down on the armrest of his chair as soon as Proko lets go.

“I only drink when I feel like death,” he says offhandedly, but something about it just doesn’t sound like a joke. There’s something in his tone that’s trying to be too casual about it. None of them are stupid; Swan might think they aren’t getting what he’s implying there, but there’s no way any of them missed it. Skov’s expression tightens. Proko frowns fake-innocently. Jiang tenses up completely, and that’s the biggest hint, really, because his headphones are off so of course he’s listening. Kavinsky, for his part, scowls because it’s _way_ too early in the day for real emotions. That’s for midnight and beyond, when he’s drunk enough that he can excuse his feelings as inebriated hallucination. So Kavinsky takes Swan’s drink away from him and downs it like one massive shot himself. It tastes like Vodka and denial. He tosses his Xbox controller to Jiang and gets up, dragging Swan with him by the arms.

“You,” he says, “need to ease the hell up if we’re gonna have any fun tonight.”

He leads Swan over to the counter where all the video game and DVD boxes are kept and roots through the cabinets until he finds his shit, and very methodically he measures out a line of coke on the countertop. Theatrically, he holds out a hand, palm up, toward Swan, and then directs him toward the line.

“No,” says Swan.

“Make yourself fucking happy,” says Kavinsky.

“Fuck no,” says Swan.

“K, don’t be such a prick,” Skov calls from across the room. The game is still running on the TV, but nobody’s paying attention to it. All focus seems narrowed to Kavinsky and Swan and the coke. People love a good drama, Kavinsky supposes.

“Alright,” says Kavinsky irritably. “How about this?” and from his pocket he produces a plastic baggie. He dumps the contents of it into his palm: a handful of iridescent blue pills, straight out of a dream and only barely tested. Thus far hands-down guaranteed to make everything euphoric and surreal in the best way. He offers these to Swan and says “Take two, it’ll fix your personality problem.”

“Seriously, fuck off.” Swan crosses his arms indignantly. He and Swan face off silently for a good long minute before Kavinsky decides to employ a very underhanded tactic. He hopes Swan isn’t so clever that he’ll see through it.

“Fine,” he says. “Stay up there on your high horse with your nice little rosebush up your ass. Don’t do it. I figured you were too pussy for it anyway.”

This has exactly the effect on Swan that Kavinsky is hoping for; his eyes narrow and he grits his teeth and his whole body tenses up like he’s preparing to punch something. Kavinsky has challenged his honor, and despite the fact that said honor is about to involve Class A drugs, Swan will never back down from that challenge. Very tightly, he says, “ _Fine,_ ” and he snatches two of the pills out of Kavinsky’s open hand and swallows them with a glare. Kavinsky smirks, because what kind of moron takes the bait that easily? But hey, it’s better in the long run. Swan’s gonna be a lot easier to deal with when he’s not being a hypocritical shitheel with a massive chip on his shoulder.

“Good for you, ugly duckling,” Kavinsky says, patting Swan on the back as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let’s get this party started.”

    

It has been an interesting evening. Swan’s first discovery of the night, once everything mellows out and he decides he doesn’t despise everything, is that there are types of alcohol that taste better than vodka, and his second discovery immediately afterwards is that there are remarkably somehow types that taste worse. Prokopenko mixes him another fancy drink with something very green and soda-flavored, and then challenges him to see how many shots of gin each of them can take. This is a mistake, because as far as Swan is concerned he is entirely capable of drinking anyone under the table. Obviously he wins, but it’s a bitter victory that should have had way more chasers following it. While that’s happening, Kavinsky pops a few of his little blue pills himself, and Skov and Jiang disappear and hotbox the bathroom.

“Try some of this shit,” says Kavinsky, reappearing at Swan’s side with the appallingly pink bottle of something in hand.

“I’m going to vomit on your stupid nice carpet,” Swan says, shaking his head. “Where did Skov get weed? I want weed.”

“I have a _fuckton_ of weed,” Kavinsky replies, grinning. “I have anything you want. Order up, bitch. The menu has everything and it’s all you can eat. Speaking of eat,” and at that he points the pink bottle at Prokopenko, “did you actually make brownies or not?”

“I totally didn’t, dude,” Proko replies, head in the refrigerator while he pulls out beer after beer. “D’you expect me to make weed brownies in the dorm kitchens? Seriously. Just make it yourself.”

“I can’t fucking bake.”

Proko emerges from the fridge with a pout. “You wanna get baked, you learn to bake.”

“Fuck off,” says Kavinsky, and then he swings an arm around Swan’s neck. Swan is far gone enough not to care at this point, and is in fact finding the heat of Kavinsky’s arm on his skin weirdly pleasant. Maybe that’s the drug Kavinsky gave him. It’s certainly making everything shimmer pleasantly. Kavinsky’s sunglasses are refracting light into fractals, and every touch feels like music. Whatever that means. “Let’s light it up,” Kavinsky says affably, and drags Swan back over to the counter to retrieve more drugs from his badly-stashed Tupperware.

“Won’t your mom find this shit?” Swan wonders as Kavinsky roots through the box.

“My mom,” Kavinsky laughs humorlessly, “is probably upstairs with her face in the carpet, giggling about pretty lights.”

And that ends that conversation.

Skov and Jiang reemerge and Swan joins them in getting even higher, and at some point once they’ve all reached peak capacity of inebriation Kavinsky leads them upstairs and out the front door, and somehow they make it downtown in a haze of drugs and adrenaline. Somewhere in their wake, several bushes are on fire, courtesy of Jiang, and Swan can hear sirens glittering in the distance. They screw around on the playground in the park, digging their initials and a litany of cuss words into the plastic underbelly of the slide with Skov’s pocketknife. Proko hits up a convenience store with his fake ID and buys them all more beer and they sit under a bridge and drink it and when they finish Kavinsky lines the cans up on the railing of the bridge and produces a shiny, fake looking gun from who knows where and they all take turns trying to shoot the cans down. And Swan pretends he isn’t enjoying being along for the ride the whole time, carving his name into playground equipment and running around town hollering and laughing. It feels too unreal for him to be enjoying this. It has to be the drugs.

Eventually they find themselves at some 24-7 diner near Aglionby and they pile into a booth and order like twelve cheeseburgers between them. Skov and Swan blow straw wrappers at each other while Prokopenko embarks joyfully on some goofball story from the last time they had an adventure like this.

“ –and so then, then he’s like, ‘gimmie back my Dr. Pepper, you fucker, I need that shit to masturbate!” Proko rambles. Swan’s only half-listening to the story; Skov’s holding his hand across the table and Kavinsky’s using him as a human headrest while he chugs his milkshake. It’s like three in the morning and Swan has no idea when it got to that point but that’s okay. It hits him, suddenly, that it’s three in the morning and he feels okay. The creeping self-hatred that usually finds him in the odd insomniac hours of the night hasn’t caught up with him yet. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part that’s still thinking and not just watching the sparkles glance off every light source in the room, he thinks it might be the drugs. Or the boys. Something like that. People letting him exist without expectations or rules. The extravagance of it, the sheer celebration of freedom and indulgence, it’s nice. It’s something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“Wow, your face looks way less annoying when it’s not twisted up like you swallowed a live fish,” says Kavinsky, and that’s when Swan realizes he’s smiling. And that’s not supposed to be happening. He’s supposed to grimace his way through the whole night and still want to punch Kavinsky at school on Monday because this is not where he belongs. Sitting in a shitty diner at three in the morning, coming down off the best high he’s ever felt, truly somehow enjoying himself with the worst Henrietta’s high school night life has to offer? Not where he’s supposed to be. He’s a punk and a rebel, but these kids are marauding and violent and care about nothing but themselves, and-

And he’s here. And he feels _good,_ good enough that he thinks it’s not just what’s left of the drugs in his system. And Skov’s smiling at him across the table, and Proko and Jiang are still laughing about the end of the Dr. Pepper story, and Kavinsky’s still leaning heavy on his shoulder and slurping his milkshake, and god damn it all, he’s tried to pretend he’s better than all this shit, but he’s just like them in the end. He’s just as fucked up, just as twisted as any of them, in his own stupid way.

This is where he belongs, like it or not.

He really doesn’t like it. He needs it like nothing else on earth.

Some time later, once everyone is sobering up, Skov checks his phone and flips his shit through the stratosphere. “I fuckin’ – _I had a curfew_ ,” he stammers, and hurriedly starts dragging his jacket on and trying to climb over the back of the diner booth.

“Dude, you’ve _never_ cared about your curfew before,” says Proko, tugging him back into his seat by the straps of his backpack. Skov struggles to free himself, but Proko’s grip is like iron and Skov really has no choice but to quit fighting him.

“That’s because I usually sneak out _after_ it,” he snaps, breathing hard, and suddenly everyone’s gotten a little quieter. Everyone’s expressions have sobered up, lost a little of their humor. Kavinsky raises an eyebrow. Proko purses his lips. Jiang opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but changes his mind. “Ma’s gonna _murder_ me, oh god…”

“I can drive you home,” Swan says quickly. Not like it’ll do much good, other than comforting Skov; he’s broken curfew already, he’s in trouble as it is. But it’s enough of an excuse to leave that both of them will jump on it immediately. Swan feels too good about being here right now, which means he needs to get out and away from it all before he can psychoanalyze it or decide he doesn’t deserve it. And Skov looks like he’s on the verge of panic. “We’re near school, and I left my car there-”

“Are you _sure_?”

“I don’t mind.”

And so they leave, and Kavinsky and Proko tease Skov about having a curfew as they go, but there’s something a little off about it, something strained. And Jiang gives them a look through the window as they pass by, something knowing and quiet that Swan doesn’t understand but Skov mirrors back at him with a curt nod. And they walk in silence back to Aglionby and get into Swan’s car without a word.

 Swan takes Skov’s tacit directions and drives him home and he doesn’t say anything when Skov insists he has to change his clothes in the back of the car, and he doesn’t say anything about the flats or the babydoll top, and he doesn’t say anything about the grim, resigned look on Skov’s face until he’s out of the car and about to say goodbye through the window.

 

“Your parents don’t know,” Swan says, and it’s not a question.

Skov shakes his head. His expression doesn’t waver. "My parents don't  _believe_ me."

“So you’re gonna walk in there and they’re gonna be all, _Hi, Lucy_ or whatever they think they get to call youand expect you to go to prom in a dress someday.”

Skov nods. He sighs. He leans his forehead on the side of Swan’s car and for a moment the pair of them are frozen there, silent as they breathe in the last dying edge of summer. For Skov’s sake, Swan is just glad Mountain View doesn’t have uniforms like Aglionby, or he’d have a lot more to be angry about. Skov stays quiet, lingering at the window of the Golf for a very long moment, and he wishes he could break the silence, but doesn’t know what to break it with. Nothing he can think of could do it without shattering something.

“Elliot?” he says eventually, his voice calm, tone measured, which is far more stable than he feels right now. The look in Skov’s eyes could be as far away as the other side of the ocean, or as close as the stars. Swan feels a horrible surge of protectiveness. He doesn’t really think it’s romantic, not exactly, but it’s something strong.

“What?”

“I’m buying you a real binder before you break your stupid ribs,” he says, and then he ruffles Skov’s hair and drives away before he can make an embarrassment of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i remember actually liking this chapter back in May when i was supposed to have it finished...
> 
> luckily I've got one full scene from the next one already written out so that shOULD happen soonish? but don't hold me to it ok between the internship and new york city and my own personal shit it's been pretty hard to write this lately
> 
> actually i feel like i should expand on that "personal shit" briefly. because i want to make this story everything it can be and i want to make it dark and edgy and gritty and violent and trippy and awful and memorable and fantastic. but sometimes i start doing that and it starts hitting really close to home. this past semester, my boyfriend and a handful of my friends were all going through some really tough personal shit individually, and they all at once kinda started dealing with that by drinking a lot of alcohol and doing drugs and smoking instead of getting actual help or reaching out to each other or the rest of our squad and like. i watched them -mostly my bf really- kinda hit a major downward spiral this semester and i'm really scared they're still doing all of it at home where they don't even have each other to be dealing with it alongside like  
> it's one thing for me to write about the dream pack getting fucked up all the time because they can't or won't deal with their own crippling depression or anxiety or hatred for the world; it's an entirely different thing seeing that exact pattern happen to my boyfriend and not being able to help him. and subconsciously i was kind of writing Swan the way i'd been seeing my bf lately, i guess partially to try and understand and partially to compartmentalize it?? i don't know??  
> anyway, that's part of the reason this chapter took so long to get done, is because it started to be a little too real to me and i realized what i was doing trying to cope with my own life by spewing it all over this fic. and i think my bf is starting to do better, so i'm feeling more okay about this now. so i'm gonna keep writing. because now it means something to me that this story gets finished and the thoughts that i've had and the stuff i've dealt with this semester goes here and stops roiling in my head and making my anxiety even worse. I want to make this story everything i think it deserves to be. i'm gonna stop pulling my punches. if it hurts to write, that probably means i'm doing something right with it.
> 
> god sorry that was way too much i'm so sorry pleaSE don't comment on this chapter with mentions about my personal life i don't want pity i don't need help i am dealing with this and asking me if i'm okay just makes me feel even less okay  
> i just thought y'all deserved to know why i disappeared off the face of AO3 for a solid month


	6. The Run and Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> specific to this chapter warnings for discussions of/some instances of transphobia

Three days later, Skov goes completely off the radar. Or at least, that’s when Proko can estimate he stops responding to any attempt at contact. The weekend blazes by behind them and Kavinsky shows up at four in the morning at Proko and Jiang’s dorm again and proceeds to crash there for the next two days without going to classes, and when he finally graces Aglionby’s halls with his presence again, Swan decks him on sight and doesn’t speak to any of them all week. Proko and Skov rarely text as it is, so it takes him a while to notice, but that following weekend when Skov doesn't show for the inaugural street race of the school year, he starts to wonder if something is up.

The next Monday, Proko arrives at school to see Kavinsky and Ronan Lynch duking it out in the courtyard. Lynch’s squad –Gansey and Parrish and a boy he recognizes yet never sees in any classes –is trying to no avail to hold Ronan back as he swings punch after perfectly-executed punch; Kavinsky is fighting as dirty as he can, aiming for the crotch and the eyes and grinning like a fucking lunatic.

“I ain’t touching that one with a fifty foot pole,” Jiang announces, pulling up next to Proko just as Kavinsky tries to knee Ronan in the gut.

“Someone should stop them,” Proko says, with the tone of someone who has absolutely no intention of stopping them. It’s one hundred percent obvious to anyone with a brain that neither Lynch nor Kavinsky knows what to do about their uncomfortably unresolved and often not-understood sexual tension. Proko feels jealous of Lynch for stealing Kavinsky’s attention without even getting why, but he also feels like they ought to just beat it out of each other, because he doesn’t want to be anywhere near the epicenter of the explosion that would be Ronan Lynch and Joseph Kavinsky attempting to be a _thing_. Probably, he thinks, if they ever tried to hash out what they felt for each other, it would end in flames.

_That’s a very specific thought_ , he muses, _“ending in flames.” Where did that come from?_

As they sit down in first period, Jiang asks him, “Any word from Skov lately? He’s not returning my texts. K's either.”

Proko blinks. He fishes his phone out of his backpack and shoots a quick message (“hey dude u alive over there”) to Skov. When there’s no reply within the first twenty minutes of class, he excuses himself to the bathroom and leans up against the sink and calls Skov. It goes straight to voicemail, which is absolutely absurd, because Skov is nigh paranoid about always having his phone charged and on. So he calls again. And he texts again. And he sends an email to every account he knows Skov has, even the one that only his drug dealer before he met Kavinksy is supposed to know about (and god if Proko can remember where he even dug that one up to begin with). Finally Skov replies, and it’s on his _school email account_ , and between that and the content of the message, Proko knows something has really truly gone wrong:

 

From: [mskov@mountainview.edu](mailto:mskov@mountainview.edu)

To: [proko.penko6669@gmail.com](mailto:proko.penko6669@gmail.com)

 

               hey man you gotta stop msging me ok don’t talk to me anymore. spread the news and fuck off ok

 

And so Proko doesn’t go back to class. He lurks in the hallway until first period lets out and the class floods into the hall, and when Jiang trails absently out the door after them all, Proko nabs him by the arm and wheels him down the hall.

“Prokopenko,” he complains, but doesn’t do anything about the grip on his arm except glare balefully at Proko’s fingers. “Dude, Proko, what’s up? Hey, we have math, you know I can’t miss math. What- _Alexei,_ hey!”

Proko stops, eyes narrowed, and it occurs to him he’s probably holding on far too tight. He releases Jiang from his grasp and watches, half-distracted as Jiang rubs his arm with a pout. Three deep breaths and he waits for the hallway to clear of students before he turns back to Jiang and his angry arched brows.

“We’re paying a visit to Skov,” he explains, and shows Jiang the email. Jiang takes his phone and inspects the screen at close range, even going so far as to put his glasses on to make sure he’s reading it right.

“Oh, no,” he groans. “This is bad, right?”

“Oh no is right. So now you see why I’m a little miffed,” Proko agrees, nodding curtly. “C’mon, we need a less conspicuous ride than mine. You have your keys for your bike?”

“We’re not bringing K?” Jiang wonders as the pair of them start back down the hallway toward the parking lot.

“If he hasn’t said anything about Skov’s radio silence yet, he’s not paying attention and doesn’t need to get his boxers in a twist until we actually know what’s up,” Proko says. What he doesn’t say is that he’s certain bringing Kavinsky along for the ride this time will end in absolute unmitigated disaster, especially considering the last they saw of him he was letting Lynch punch him in the face just so he could get some skin-to-skin contact between them. He’s in rare form today, and letting him know Skov’s in trouble before they know exactly what kind of trouble will only end in havoc and death.

Proko thinks, as they cross the parking lot, that it’s truly ironic how much Kavinsky hates the idea of the mafia, because when it comes to the crew, they’re basically a crime family already, and Kavinsky can’t stand it when someone fucks with what he considers his. Quite frankly, neither can the rest of them though, which is why Jiang is hauling the tarp off his motorcycle –for emergencies and showing the fuck off only –and why Proko is ready to physically carry Skov out of class and smuggle him into Aglionby’s dorms in a suitcase and let him move into their already overcrowded room if that’s what it comes to.

“Don’t be such a mom,” Jiang teases him as he revs the motorcycle. Proko doesn't point out that what Jiang has just teased him about, he hasn't said a word of out loud. He wonders when Jiang is going to bring up the fact that this is a regularly occurring phenomenon. “Skov’s gonna be alright.”

“But what if he isn’t?”

“That’s what we’re going over there for, ain’t it?”

Proko nods. Jiang is right; it’s not just Kavinsky that would burn down the city for the rest of the squad. It’s always been with or against, and going against any one of the crew means going against all of them.

They park Jiang’s motorcycle a block away from Skov’s school and they’re halfway to the receptionist’s desk when it occurs to Proko they can’t just ask the receptionist where Elliot Skov is, because quite possibly the school has no idea who “Elliot” Skov is.

“Fuck,” says Jiang, when Proko voices his concern. “Whatcha suggest we do then?”

“We could case the whole building and peek through the windows of every classroom ‘til we see him.”

“That sounds obnoxious. Also, what if we don’t find him before class lets out and they all switch rooms? We’d have to start over.”

“True.”

Proko wants to suggest to Jiang that he use his freaky mind reading ability to sweep the building and find Skov by his thoughts, but he doesn’t know if that’s something Jiang is capable of. More importantly, he doesn’t know if Jiang is aware Proko knows he can read minds. Not like he’s subtle about it or anything; he makes a few too many sarcastic asides to things that Proko thinks but doesn’t actually say. It’s as if Jiang _wants_ someone to notice, but doesn’t want to have to up and admit it himself.

Before Proko can suggest something else stupid, like pulling the fire alarm and waiting out on the lawn until Skov files out with the rest of his class, someone taps him on the shoulder. “Are you guys lost or something?” says a voice. Proko turns around, and then he looks around, and finally he realizes he has to look _down_ to discover that the source of the voice is a very short girl with extravagantly decorated hair and a colorful shirt that appears to have gone through a paper shredder.

“Quite,” says Jiang. “Can you tell us what class Elliot Skov is in?”

The girl’s eyebrows knit together. “Describe him?” she asks.

“Uh, pointy,” says Proko. “Black hair, lots of piercings, shit sense of humor-”

The girl’s expression goes sour. “Oh,” she says grimly. “You’re more of that _Kavinsky_ guy’s friends, aren’t you.”

Proko leans over and whispers to Jiang, “Are you glad we didn’t bring him or what?”

"How fucking far does his reputation extend?"

“We’re Skov’s friends too, and that’s what matters right now,” Proko says to the girl. “Do you know where he is?”

“It’s not like I have everyone’s schedules memorized or something,” she snaps. “I think he’s in French? I don’t know. Look, I _seriously_ have to use the bathroom, so if you don’t mind.” She breezes by them without saying goodbye and disappears down the hall.

Even with the girl’s suggestion that Skov might be in French, that’s still several classrooms to peer awkwardly into through the tiny window set into the door, but eventually they find Skov, slumped over his desk while the French Three teacher belts out something that sounds vaguely like “ _La France c’est une hexagon!”_

“There he is,” says Proko, peering over the top of Jiang’s head while Jiang makes faces through the window in an attempt to get Skov’s attention.

“What the hell is he wearing?” Jiang scoffs. “That’s obscenely floral.”

“I wear floral,” Proko counters.

“You wear Hawaiian print, that’s different. That’s a frickin’ blouse.”

“I also wear those sometimes.”

“You’re special, dude. Skov’s a pretty typical snapback-sneakers kinda guy.”

Proko and Jiang both pull away from the door and share a look of distress.

“You don’t think his parents-“ Jiang starts to say, but Proko cuts him off.

“Don’t jump to conclusions yet, man. I don’t wanna think it either. We wait and we ask him when he gets outta class.”

_Or_ , Proko thinks, _you could use your freaky mindwaves and just listen to his memories or whatever_. _It would solve a lot_.

“There’s a reason,” Jiang says, low and serious, as they lean up against the opposing wall, “that I don’t take these off in crowded places.” He taps his headphones meaningfully, and then levels a hard glare straight at Prokopenko. “They block a lot of it out. But if you stand close enough, I can hear you anyway. You passive-aggressive stupid fucker. Quit thinking about me behind my back like that.”

Prokopenko feels a chill run down his spine. Vaguely he recalls a book series he read in middle school which had a character like that, whose empath powers threatened to destroy her mind if she took her headphones off in public and let the feelings of the world in.

“It’s not like that,” Jiang scoffs at his thoughts. The quiet fury doesn’t leave his eyes, and it’s the scariest Proko’s ever seen Jiang in his life. “It’s just noise. It’s like being in a baseball stadium crowd, only it’s overfull with five times the amount of people, and all of them are screaming whatever emotion runs through their head all the time.”

 

“So you won’t lose your marbles if you touch someone and all their memories pour into you or something.”

“No, asshole. It doesn't work that way. It's more like tuning a radio. By the way, if you knew, why didn’t you say something?”

“Dude, how the hell d’you expect me to believe you? Anyway, wouldn't you _know_ if I knew?”

“You believed Kavinsky about his family from the get-go, even if you told yourself you didn’t. It made sense.” Jiang frowns pensively at him. Proko’s mouth goes dry; nobody’s supposed to know the mafia rumors are true, except for him… and obviously Jiang would know, because Jiang is a fucking telepath, and of course he knows if Proko knows. A shiver runs down Proko’s spine. There’s no such thing as secrets when your friend can overhear your thoughts.

“It’s not like I’m eavesdropping on purpose,” Jiang snaps. “God, quit acting like this is my fault! I never asked for this shit.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t lie to me, man, you know I'm gonna know.” Jiang shakes his head, and his shaggy hair falls in his face, obscuring his eyes.

“Is this why you’re a dick to everyone? ‘Cause you can hear all the little shitty things they think in passing about you.”

“Turnabout would be fair play,” Jiang agrees, shrugging. “But no, I’m just a dick to everyone because they’re all full of shit and someone oughta let them know before it’s too late.”

“Wow.” Prokopenko laughs uncomfortably and runs a hand through the back of his hair. “Man, okay, just forget this conversation happened, I guess.”

“…Sure?”

Proko leans heavily on the wall, and the pair of them waits for Skov, and eventually the doors down the hallway start opening and ejecting students. As kids in Skov’s French class start packing up to go, Jiang says casually, “I didn’t notice anyone but K had caught on.”

“K knows too?”

“Yeah, but he pretends he doesn’t. Don’t bring it up. Swan might suspect, but that's because I tried to scare the shit outta him with it and it worked. And don’t tell anyone else. I’ll know if you did.”

Proko twitches uncomfortably. He tries very hard not to think about the fact that Jiang probably knows about every embarrassing little thing he's ever done since he was born. Or if he didn't, he does now, because Proko can't not think about it for fear of Jiang scraping through his brain and finding out that when he was eight he accidentally pantsed his hot babysitter, or the time he threw up trying to give a class presentation in sixth grade, or the incident with the spaghetti and the cat-

Jiang giggles. Proko shoves him.

Skov finally emerges from the classroom, looking absolutely miserable in a floral blouse and capris, until he sees Jiang and Proko waiting for him. When he notices them, his face cycles through about twelve conflicting emotions before settling on “dead horror” and he storms toward them, snatches them both by the front of their shirts, and drags them wordlessly into the nearest bathroom.

“Skov-” Proko starts, but Skov grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pushing him into the sink. A guy enters the bathroom after them, pauses in the doorway to briefly regard Skov shoving Proko up against the counter while Jiang flaps his hands uselessly at them, and then turns around and leaves.

“I _said_ you can’t talk to me anymore, for _fuck’s sake_ , man!” Skov yells.

“You can’t just send a message like that and expect me _not_ to get worried,” Proko retorts, trying valiantly to keep his tone level. Skov’s upset, that much is obvious, but the moment Proko retaliates he’s lost the argument. He has to keep it in check.

“Get out,” says Skov, releasing Proko’s shirt. “Both of you guys, get out, go back to school, I don’t know what the hell you thought you were gonna achieve coming here, get the fuck away from me, I’m already in deep enough shit as it is.”

“Skov,” Jiang starts, but Skov holds a hand up and he stops.

“Seriously, you’re just making things worse.”

“Skov, what the hell is going on?” Proko asks. “You can talk to me, man.”

“I _can’t_ , you idiot,” Skov snaps, and then his voice wavers when he adds, “That’s the whole _problem_. I _can’t_ talk to you guys anymore.”

 

Half an hour later, Jiang and Proko storm out the front doors of Mountain View High, having spent most of a class period hiding out on the fire escape stairs with Skov, hearing the whole damn story. Jiang still has his arms tight around himself and his bottom lip between his teeth. Proko’s hands are shoved deep into his pockets to keep himself from punching anything. His whole body feels tense, like a tightly-coiled spring about to be released.

“Now what?” Jiang asks as they make their way back to where they parked the motorcycle.

“ _Now_ ,” says Proko, “we get Kavinsky involved.”

 

Kavinsky targets Swan in the hallway between third and fourth period and makes a beeline for him. He grabs him roughly by the arm and whirls him around, and with their elbows hooked together like they're off to see the wizard, Kavinsky drags him back the way he came. Swan struggles to yank himself free with much bitching and moaning; he's got a class to go to and he's gonna damn well go to it because he has a quiz to pass, for fuck's sake. He wonders if he's the only member of Kavinsky's crew who cares about his goddamn grades. He wonders when the fuck he started considering himself a member of Kavinsky's crew, because the thought of that almost makes him physically ill. It’s only been ten days since the fucking party, and he’s had lunch with them most of those days, and he kind of hates himself for it.

He tells Kavinsky all of this, peppered with all the "fuck you"s and physical abuse he can fit in between his words. Kavinsky takes it all surprisingly in stride; he ignores Swan's varied attempts to strangle him or pull his hair out until they're all the way on the top floor of the main building in an empty classroom with the door shut behind them.

Kavinsky locks the door, turns on Swan, and with surprising speed he hooks one leg around the back of Swan's and topples him backwards onto a desk. Swan tries to sit up, but Kavinsky has a knife blade to his neck that Swan didn't even see him pull out. His breath catches in his throat. Kavinsky pins him with the knife and with one hand still on his arm, and he leans in close and says, "You don't fucking treat me like that."

Swan swallows hard, feeling the edge of the knife biting into his neck. He locks eyes with Kavinsky for a terrifying three seconds, and then Kavinsky's sunglasses slide down his nose and fall off, bumping Swan on the nose and clattering to the table. Swan snorts derisively at him.

"Fucker," says Kavinsky, retrieving his glasses and hiding the knife somewhere discreetly on his person. Swan doesn't see where he puts it, so he doesn't drop his guard even as Kavinsky crosses to the window. He jimmies open the lock, pushes the window open, and climbs out of it onto the roof. Ducking his head back in, he says, "Get your ass up here, you white trash rebel wannabe."

"Fuck you, I have a calculus quiz," says Swan, but he knows there's no arguing with Kavinsky. The only time "no" means anything to him is if he's the one saying it. Swan pinches the bridge of his nose, exhales a long, frustrated breath, and follows Kavinsky out the window.

As he scales to the peak of the roof where Kavinsky is waiting, Swan does his best not to look down. The sheer knowledge that it's a nasty scraping slide followed by a four story drop to the ground below is enough to make his stomach churn. He wonders if somehow Kavinsky knows he dislikes heights -possibly Jiang found out for him, in which case Swan is probably going to take him out behind the gym and kick the shit out of him -and dragged him up here alone on purpose to ensure he had the upper hand. Swan hopes Kavinsky recognizes that however much vertigo he has, he's still not above shoving his bony, arrogant ass off the roof instead if it comes to that.

It better not come to that. Swan has recently discovered that he doesn't entirely mind Henrietta, and there may in fact be a few entertaining and socially acceptable people in it, and he doesn't want to have to leave to avoid the law.

Kavinsky is perched alone at the peak of the roof when Swan finally gets up there. Somehow it’s unsettling being up here without Jiang and Prokopenko there too, and the fact that they're not simultaneously concerns Swan and piques his curiosity. Kavinsky nods at the space next to him, and Swan sits. He tries not to white-knuckle his grip on the roof tiles.

"You get this, right?" says Kavinsky. He gestures to them, the rooftop, the area around them. "You get why we're up here."

Swan shrugs. "We can't be interrupted."

"That's true too, but no. Use your brain, genius. You got into this school, theoretically there's one in there somewhere. Why are _we_ up here?"

Swan bites his lip and considers this. "It's a test of faith," he says eventually. "You wanna know if I trust you."

"Bingo."

"I suppose me following you up here alone at all means I passed."

Kavinsky smiles thinly. "There's more," he mentions.

"Is there now."

"I gotta know if I can trust _you_."

Swan blinks in surprise. "You don't trust anyone."

"Bullshit," Kavinsky laughs. "I trust people. There's just no halfway on it. There's with me or against me. Nothing in between."

"So you wanna know if I'm with you."

"Righto, prettyboy."

Swan levels a glare at Kavinsky. He thinks he really only trusts him so long as he's got the upper hand on him; the only thing keeping him precariously perched four stories above the ground with Kavinsky is the knowledge that his reflexes are better and he can shove Kavinsky off the roof before Kavinsky shoves him. By nature, Kavinsky is a tricky fuck with loose morals and the most self-serving attitude on the planet. He does everything for his own benefit first and foremost, and other people's needs only come at his most fanciful whims.

He does remember, though, Kavinsky threatening him with horrifying death if he fucked up with Skov. When he considers something _his_ , nobody else is allowed to mess with it. Swan doesn't know if it's protective or just possessive, but it occurs to him that being on Kavinsky's side, in the long run, would be far more beneficial than making him an enemy.

"Fine," he says. "But I'm nobody's fucking property. You treat me like an equal or I'll kick you in the nuts until you do."

Kavinksy sneers at him, and then he pulls his knees up to his chest and crosses his arms atop them. "Great. Now that we're clear on that," he adds, "there's an actual important thing I dragged you up here for. Proko and Jiang already know about it. Actually, they told me about it, and they’re both ditching today trying to do something about it."

"Okay…"

"Have you heard from Skov lately?"

"Very briefly," Swan says gloomily. "He's been grounded or something for breaking curfew."

"He's not grounded for breaking curfew," says Kavinsky, resting his chin in his hands. Swan raises an eyebrow. "Well, it was that to begin with. He's probably gonna try and call you later from school, Proko told him to call from the school nurse's."

"What's going on?"

Kavinsky scowls. "His parents are massive fuckwads is what's going on. His internet's shut down, his phone's taken away, and his shitty mom insists on driving him to and from school. They totally shut him off. And took his normal clothes too. Proko was pretty fucking mad on the phone so they probably did something totally retarded and actually threw it all out instead of just hiding it."

From the tone of his voice, Kavinsky is just as angry as Proko must’ve been. Swan feels bile rising in the back of his throat.

"What the fuck," says Swan. " _Why_?"

"Proko got an email from him from school and then he and Jiang showed up and made him spill. After he broke curfew the other weekend, his parents searched his room for drugs and shit or something, and they found all his guy clothes and his –what’s it called, that trans guys stick in their pants to look like they’ve got a dick."

"A packer."

"Yeah, they found that. And I feel like shit that they did because I helped him get it in the first place."

"They found a prosthetic dick in their son's room." Swan almost wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, but it's not funny at all. Skov could be in leagues more trouble than they think. Swan's seen news articles about shit like this, about parents who flip out about their kids' identities and freak out and send them away to get "fixed" and shit. He has a brief image of Skov at anti-queer boot camp in a pink southern belle dress, and feels viscerally ill.

"Even worse, since they’re fucking idiots and still think he's their freakin' daughter," says Kavinsky. "Anyway, he’s not allowed to see any of us ever again, because apparently we’re _bad influences_. Like Skov wasn’t just as fucked up as any of us from the get-go. Only reason he hangs out with us is ‘cause we’re all as twisted as each other, none of his shit is _my_ fault or any of ours. Certainly ain’t any of our faults he’s queer. Fuckin’, they went through his phone, they read his texts, what the fuck is wrong with them? Yknow, when  _my_ dad started pulling shit like that, I-” Kavinsky pauses his rant right as he reaches a crescendo, sighs theatrically, and runs a hand through his supremely overgelled hair. When he looks back at Swan, all the fire’s left his eyes. “I fucked up. I shouldn't have- fuck. This is on me."

"Yeah, it kind of is. Who the fuck gives their friend a fake dick? I don’t even think he wears it often." Swan wants to say more, and join Kavinsky in raging, but he’s pretty much said it all already. Fury burns in the back of his throat, and he clenches his fists in the fabric of his uniform pants. And the last bit of what Kavinsky said, about his own family... Swan wonders if he's not taking this personally, somehow. 

Kavinsky buries his face in his hands. "It was a good idea at the time, okay? He was fucking miserable, he _asked_ me to help, alright? So I dre- I ordered one for him so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”

"That’s possibly the nicest thing I’ve ever heard of you doing for anyone ever. Not like you ever set the bar very high to begin with."

"I am _perfectly_ fucking nice.”

“Literally last Friday you and Proko were on a quest to try and run over squirrels. You destroy other people’s property and film it to put on Vine. Last weekend Jiang says you threatened some out-of-town guy with a gun for cheating in a race or something. You’re a _disaster_.”

“I know,” Kavinsky grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and Swan wonders if he’s said something very wrong. He sucks in a deep, deep breath and tries to rein in his anger about Skov’s situation. A million worst-case scenarios burn through his mind: Skov never allowed to see them again; Skov being forced to go to an all-girls’ boarding school; Skov’s faceless unknown parents dragging him into a psychiatrist’s office, into a psych ward, into the back of a moving van with all the family’s belongings in boxes and driving down the highway out of Henrietta. Skov’s name at the top of an online news article, the title of a blog post reading JUSTICE FOR ELLIOT SKOV-

"We're gonna get him out of this," says Swan, very definitively. A fiercely protective urge is bubbling up inside him, forcing its way through the rage. Kavinsky looks up, eyebrows knit quite seriously together. "You, Jiang, and Proko, meet me after classes at the gate. We're gonna give his parents hell. We’re gonna get him outta there."

"For real? Shitdamn, I’m on board. You got a plan?" Kavinsky says, mood already seeming to lift at the call to action. Swan makes a bridge of his fingers and leans his chin on them pensively. He’s still boiling with rage, but he’s going to put it somewhere productive if it kills him.

"One is coalescing, yes."

"Is it totally jacked?"

"Right now it involves petitioning the government of Henrietta. Is that jacked enough?"

"That's _mindlessly_ stupid, and it’ll take forever. Leave the law outta this shit. Make a different plan," Kavinsky says, shoving Swan. He flinches and grabs at the roof. "Make it big. Make it daring. Make it flashy and epic and like we ripped it off the plot of the next _Fast and the Furious_ movie."

Swan scoffs. “More like _Mad Max_. This is justice, not a fuckin’ heist.”

“Have you even _seen_ the _Fast and the Furious_ movies? Wait, either way this could easily involve a car chase. I call I’m driving if it goes that far.”

Swan bites his lip and sighs. And then -

"Okay, I've got it. But I need to go get some things we need.” Swan swings his legs down and starts climbing down the roof.

“What things?” Kavinsky calls after him. “Anything I can get?”

“A crowbar. A ladder. Spray paint, probably. And a getaway car. You go find Jiang and Proko and come up with some kinda diversion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i suck this chapter was done a week ago and i was just putting off doing the art because i've been marathon-watching Young Justice
> 
> anyway this chapter is titled after The Run and Go by Twenty One Pilots (and cos i forgot to mention, last chapter was MCR)
> 
> next chapter we're finally gonna get to the part where these boys show their true colors as Class A Problem Children, so buckle your seatbelts and hold on to your shorts cos shit's about to get real


	7. Seven Devils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seven Devils, aka the chapter where the shit hits the fucking fan

After dinner, Skov slams the door of his room behind himself and shoves his desk chair up under the knob to force it to stay closed. He heaves his bookshelf sideways to block the hinge from moving just in case, because it’s not like he’s got a lock on his door and solitude’s all he’s got going for him right now. He practically tears off the stupid blouse, and he throws the flats as hard as he can just to hear them smack against the wall, and he collapses face-first on his bed and fists his hands in the comforter.

He wants to cry, but he thinks he’s run out, after this morning. God, he never expected Proko and Jiang to _show up at his school_. Six months in and he’s still not used to these kinds of friendship, where everyone’s in everyone else’s business all the time. Kavinsky he’s known longer than the others, and he’s less like that, he tends to bottle up all his personal shit until it bursts, but Jiang and Proko have always been more open about their issues. And Skov was just getting used to it, just getting used to a family of friends in so deep with each other that they may as well be cuffed together with the keys thrown away. Even Swan seemed to fit so well into the dynamic of it all, even though he’s barely been with them a few weeks.

He didn’t realize it would hurt so much to have that torn away.

Skov rolls over onto his back. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights when he came in, and he isn’t about to now. He closes his eyes, and steadies his breath, and then he turns sideways and slides off the bed.

He’s just remembered he’s got one thing left his parents didn’t take.

How they didn’t find it, he’s not really positive. Possibly it’s the wards on the boxes he keeps it all in. He’s certain those were supposed to keep things _in_ , not keep people out. He assumes keeping people from finding the box is the easiest step to sealing it in, though.

Skov gets down on his hands and knees, and pulls the shoebox out from under his bed.

_This_ , he thinks, _is now or never_. Things cannot possibly get worse from this point, so he might as well go as hard as he can. Setting the box open on the windowsill, Skov leans his full weight against his bed and shoves it off to the side, and rolls his throw rug up and pushes it into the corner. With his pocketknife, he scratches a five pointed star inscribed in a circle into the wood floor of his room. He sets a black candle on one point, a red one on another. Empty plastic bowl on the third, and this is where he hesitates.

Curses are so much easier in theory than practice. No setup, no stage fright. No worrying it’ll come back around to haunt him. The threefold law doesn’t count for shit to Skov, but cosmic irony and poetic justice do. It’d be just his luck if he cursed his parents to suffer his pain and he screwed it up and ended up suffering theirs instead and hating himself even worse, or something.

This is the most powerful spellwork he’s ever done, and he’s staking everything on it.

No pressure.

Skov tugs on a pair of rubber gloves, because god knows some of this shit is poisonous. From inside the shoebox he takes out several Ziploc bags, a black-burnt jar, a kitchen-size carton of rock salt, a mostly-ceremonial knife, and a vacuum-sealed package containing –if Kavinsky wasn’t lying when he handed it over –a human heart.

Sometimes Skov feels weird about keeping Kavinsky’s secrets for him. It makes him uncomfortable to hide from the others that the ringleader of their squad can pull anything he can think of out of his dreams, especially when that’s where he gets all the drugs he gives them. But then there are the moments like these, where he’s standing in the dark holding a vacuum-sealed heart in a bag, that he thinks the others are probably better off if they never get involved with his and K’s specific kind of freaky.

Grim but determined and fueled by righteous fury, Skov slits open the vacuum-sealed bag, dumps the heart out onto the fourth point of the pentacle, and drives the mostly-ceremonial knife right through it.

That’s step one completed. 

Step two: make sure this doesn’t come back to kill him. Curses, in Skov’s very limited and mostly online-forum-related experience, have a habit of coming back to bite the curser in the ass, and so step two means drawing a circle of salt around the fifth point of the pentacle, means burning sage on a plate on the windowsill, means tucking quartz and bay leaves into the pockets of his jeans and wearing charms around his neck. As many white candles as he can find, lit and lining the edges of every surface he can fit them on. He whips out a sharpie and inks sigils onto the backs of his hands, and gritting his teeth at his reflection in the mirror, he pulls up the bottom edge of his sports bra to outline another one over his heart.

Once he’s finished that, he takes the handful of Ziploc bags and starts pouring their contents into the bowl on point number three of the star. War water and storm water, nightshade, vinegar and peppercorns, stinging nettle and sulfur –most of these ingredients came courtesy of Kavinsky, at the price of being on call to cast spells to help him sleep dreamlessly if he had to, and also being a test subject alongside Proko for any new weird drugs he dreamt up. The final ingredient is a compact mirror, which Skov pops out of its frame, braces it in his hands so he can see his face in the semidarkness, and then presses his thumbs into the center until it shatters. He drops this into the bowl too, and stirs it carefully with one gloved finger.

Skov considers chanting something as he works, but magic words have always felt meaningless to him, so instead he just ditches the rubber gloves, lights the black candle, and steps backward into the salt circle at the fifth point of the star.

Hands clasped, eyes shut, and here’s where things get weird. Skov’s no stranger to the fact that Henrietta is an easy place for magic. The one time he met the town psychics –a complete accident –at a school potluck freshman year, he’d overheard one of them telling this to one of the other mothers in attendance. Skov had been standing next to her and her daughter at the buffet table, and he’d glanced at the daughter –some-color Sargent –to ask if she was psychic too, but she left in a twirl of skirts before he could.

“She’s not,” said the town psychic’s friend –or cousin, or partner, or some kind of family friend; anyway, she was eerie and pale and more floaty skirt and nebulous hair than woman as it was –“But you are.” And then she’d disappeared into the crowd after the girl Sargent and left Skov in her strange supernatural wake.

_But you are_ , he thought. _You’re magic. You can do so much with that, you know._

Henrietta is an easy place for magic. Sometimes this is reassuring to Skov, when he needs to light incense on the windowsill and tuck sachets of herbs into his pockets, when it feels like the warm summer wind is a quiet and perpetual embrace around him. In moments like that, in the liminal time between sunset and night, Skov feels like there’s nowhere safer than Henrietta.

Sometimes, though, in the liminal time between sunset and night, he gets the strangest sensation that he’s not alone. That something is whispering to him from just out of earshot, that something is waiting for him to drop his guard and turn around to make sure the only thing following him is his own shadow. In the few moments of dusk before the full darkness of the evening sets in, Skov feels like the whole world is holding its breath in anticipation. 

_And what are you anticipating?_

_Freedom_ , thinks Skov, _and justice_ , which he supposes is obvious, and he’s not sure why he had to ask himself the question. Then he thinks, _I never said_ I _was anticipating anything._

_Certainly not. But you are._

It takes a moment for Skov to wonder if he should continue cursing his parents if his mind isn’t completely set on making it work, another moment to realize that of course he’s set on doing it or he wouldn’t have started to begin with, and another after that for him to recognize that the voice in his head isn’t quite his own.

“What are you?” he whispers out loud, and a sudden breeze ruffles the curtains behind him, ghosting against his back and tousling his hair. Once again, he thinks he can almost hear a voice on the wind, and he wants badly to be able to disregard it, but this time he can pick out words.

_I can give you your justice_ , it says, and Skov’s not sure whether the whispers on the wind and the voice inside his head are the same one or not. He shivers, even though it’s not really that cold. _But nothing in this world is free._

“Shut up,” says Skov. “and fuck off. I’m busy. I don’t need your help.”

“You sure about that?” says a very real voice outside his head, and Skov whirls around inside his salt circle to see Swan climbing in through his window. He swings a leg up over the windowsill and knocks over the plate with the sage, and Skov cringes.

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” Skov almost runs to the window to shoo Swan back outside, but that would mean leaving the protective circle while the curse is still half-baked in his head. “How did you get- _this is the second floor_!”

“Brought a ladder,” Swan says with a shrug as he dusts off his hands on his jeans. And then, as if somehow he failed to notice the state of Skov’s room as he climbed in the window or something, he casts a long glance across the shoved-around furniture covered in candles, the rolled up carpet- the pentagram and all its accoutrements, finally landing on Skov at the peak. He opens his mouth, makes a face like he’s inhaling a whole fish, and then shuts his mouth again. After a long strange moment, he decides better of his uncomfortable silence and says, “Uh, not to be weird, not that this is like. Weird or anything, but. What the unholy _hell_ are you _doing_?”

_You totally made it weird_ , thinks Skov, but he doesn’t say anything. There’s pretty much zero way to explain to your sort-of boyfriend that you aren’t allowed to have that you’re halfway through cursing your parents to suffer the pain of every injustice they’ve ever done you, returned back at them tenfold. Getting walked in on while masturbating would be easier to deal with than Swan finding out he’s a witch.

“Please just go away, man,” Skov says, sighing. “I’m kind of. In the middle of something.”

“I mean, I can tell that,” says Swan, stepping further into the room. “But is it like, something you can finish in Kavinsky’s basement?” Swan doesn’t wait for an answer before crossing to Skov’s closet and shuffling around, searching through it.

“What? No. Wait, what? What are you _doing_?”

“Nothing nearly as strange as summoning Satan or whatever the fuck _you’re_ doing,” Swan teases, but he sounds uncomfortable about it. “D’you have a suitcase? Do you have anything you wanna pack? Pack it all, man, we’re getting you outta here.”

“ _What_.”

“We’re busting you out, Skov.”

Immediately, shame and embarrassment and anger broil in the pit of Skov’s gut. “I don’t need _saving_.”

“Jiang and Prokopenko thought otherwise.”

“I told them to fuck off too. I can fight my own fucking battles.”

Swan frowns pensively, and shuts the closet door. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and sighs through his nose and says, “It’s a little late for that. We kinda have this whole plan-”

“Get out of my room,” Skov insists, doing his best to ignore Swan. He knows his attention isn’t on the curse anymore, that it’s not going to be nearly as strong as he’d hoped, but he can’t keep the right kind of rage in his heart while Swan and who knows who else is here messing things up. He was halfway through fixing his problems, after which he was planning on striding proudly out the front door and never coming back. But then the squad decided they were more competent than him, that they knew what was best, just like his stupid parents thought they knew what was best, that _they_ ought to take matters into their own damn hands-

“Quit muttering to yourself, you stubborn douchebag, and pack whatever you want to take before Proko and Kavinsky finish setting up the diversion.”

“Setting up _what_ diversion?” Skov growls, finally dropping his hands and letting them curl into fists at his sides. On a very basic, logical level, he knows he shouldn’t be upset with the gang for caring, but right now it’s too consumed in his growing fury at the thought that they didn’t think him capable of handling his own problems on his own.

“Uh-”

“Maja? Who are you talking to?”

Skov’s blood runs cold and his breath catches unpleasantly in his throat. “Nobody, mom, leave me alone!”

When he turns back to Swan, he’s screwed up his face like he’s swallowed a lemon.

“What’s _your_ deal?” Skov snaps, but the fight’s gone out of him like the wind sucked it out. His head swims like he’s got the flu, his whole body trembles like he’s about to shut down, but like _hell_ he’s going to. If Swan notices his hands shaking, he doesn’t point it out.

Swan raises his eyebrows incredulously, lips pressed tightly together. “Ma _ya_?”

“Don’t you fucking _dare_ start-”

But Swan doesn’t have time to start anything, because before he can a huge explosion goes off somewhere far too close. It shakes the whole house, it rattles the windows. Several things atop Skov’s shelves topple over.

“What the _hell_ was that?” he yells as Swan removes his hands from his ears. “What the unpleasant chafing fuck was that?”

Swan grins sheepishly. “That would be Proko and K’s diversion. I kinda gave them and Jiang free reign on that part of the plan. Quick, come on, while your parents are freaking out, grab your shit and let’s go, Jiang’s got the getaway car in the alley-”

“ _Getaway car?_ ” Skov screams. “Xavier, you guys set off an explosion in my backyard- _my neighbor’s a police officer-”_

_“_ What? Shit, man, we gotta go _now-_ ”

“Maja? Come downstairs right _now,_ don’t think we didn’t see those delinquent friends of yours out the window-”

The only reason, Skov tells himself, that he leaves his stupid salt circle is to storm across the room, grab Swan by the front of his shirt, and punch him in the face.

“What the _fuck-”_ Swan yelps, and Skov pushes him out of the way. At this point, he doesn’t even care that Swan stumbles and falls into the stupid curse circle and knocks over the candles. He dumps his shoebox of witch goods into his school bag, yanks the pillow off his bed and wallops Swan with it as he approaches for good measure, and then crosses to the window.

“We’re getting out of here before your bullshit gets me in even deeper shit than I’m already in,” he says to Swan. “But when we’re safely out of the woods, you and the pack and I? We’re gonna have _words_.”

  

Jiang doesn’t quite know why he agreed to drive the getaway car. Thus far it’s been the least pleasant part of his day, and his day has included two quizzes, one presentation that Swan was supposed to do the other half of but never showed up for, and a thirty minute period in which Skov cried into Prokopenko’s sweater and Jiang got the privilege of personally enjoying, via telepathic incident, all the pent-up depression and rage and dysphoria and isolation he was venting. The only marginally interesting part of lurking in the alley while pretending his bright yellow Supra was any kind of subtle was when his gorgeous homemade bomb went off in Skov’s parents’ backyard and Kavinsky and Proko had come rocketing around the corner to pile into the back seat, whooping it up like they were at a club. Jiang could see the explosion over the bushes in the backyard, billowing into the sky like a cinematic masterpiece. It was one _hell_ of an adrenaline boost.

But that was over fast, and that was the height of his excitement for the night. And now it’s quiet again.

“ _Far_ too quiet,” he mutters. “Where the _hell_ are Swan and Skov?”

“Y’don’t think they got caught?” Proko worries. Proko worries altogether too much for his own damn good, he’s always assuming the worst. He really ought to stop, or he’s going to turn Jiang into a pessimist by proxy.

“More likely Skov had a shitfit,” Kavinsky guesses, and Jiang thinks he’s probably right. Skov and his Atlas complex probably wouldn’t take getting rescued from his tower like fucking Rapunzel and just roll with it. Briefly, Jiang considers that Skov may have pushed Swan right back out the window of his room if he got mad enough, and hopes that isn’t the case. Blowing up the backyard and kidnapping Skov? Totally doable. Fixing several of Swan’s broken bones? Definitely not a part of his very specialized skill set.

“Anyway, how much damage did it do?” Jiang asks, because if they haven’t told him already it must not’ve been as impressive as he’d hoped. He’d designed the bomb very specifically, and somehow Kavinsky had put it all together perfectly, and god _damn_ if he didn’t want to know how well it worked. Certainly, he could see the glow and the flames from over the fence, the explosion had gone twenty feet in the air and it was heart-pounding. But Jiang still wishes he’d been the one to light it off, instead of having to wait in the car like a fucking mom. If anyone, Proko’s the goddamn team mom, not him. Jiang builds the bombs, Jiang’s the honest-to-god pyromaniac, Jiang’s the one who habitually sets fire to curtains and clothing and leaves and even himself on occasion; he has every right to be the detonations guy. Not the fucking carpool.

“It was a _ma_ zing,” Kavinsky says. “Lit up the whole yard. Grass is on fire, bushes and everything. I think it even singed the gutter, I mean, _damn_.”

“The _yard_ is on fire,” Jiang says, incredulous. “Awesome.”

“Yeah, well, we nearly got caught in it,” Proko complains, eyes shifting uncomfortably. He cranes his neck out the window and tries to peer over the backyard fence. “Hope the guys can get outta the house without running into trouble ‘cause of it.”

“They’re _fine_ ,” Kavinsky insists, waving a hand dismissively, and then in the distance, over the end of his words, Jiang hears sirens. “Yo, J, ‘sthat the cops or the fire department?”

“Fire department,” Jiang answers immediately, because he’s heard the sirens enough times in his life to know by now. “Dude, how much of the gutters got singed? How close did you put it to the house? Not that I’d be complaining if you blew the house up, but it _was_ technically supposed to be a distraction, not a destruction.”

“How far away were we _supposed_ to stick it?” Proko leans into the front seat, his face all horror and concern, but Jiang doesn’t think he’s really feeling it, just putting on a show. Which is odd. Usually Proko’s concern is very real and visceral. It takes a lot to suspend that, and usually it involves his fist and someone else’s face, not something as personally removed as explosives. Jiang leans out the window and peers into the distance; the sirens are getting louder.

“Hey, there they are!” Kavinsky shouts, waving out the open window at Skov and Swan tumbling out of the side yard. Swan has a nasty bruise blooming on his temple, and Skov has a pillow under one arm and looks like murder. Both of them have ash in their hair; Jiang doesn’t miss Kavinsky flinching in the backseat, nor Proko pointedly not looking at the burn scars on his upper arms, covered only by a ridiculous(ly awesome) tattoo of a flaming 8-ball.

Swan vaults the hood of the car and climbs hurriedly into the front seat; Skov slides into the back and slams the door furiously behind him.

“Hi,” says Proko, and Skov shoves him immediately.

“I hate every single one of you right now,” is all Skov manages to say before Jiang notices the police sirens blending with the fire engines’ and he floors it immediately. The Supra rockets out of the alley, bumping over unfilled potholes and jostling everyone in the car, and in the rearview mirror Jiang sees flashing lights.

Jiang pulls onto a side road –he glances back down the alley and oh, yes, the roof of Skov’s house is _certainly_ on fire now –and fidgets with his phone to start up the GPS; he doesn’t know this neighborhood and he needs to take the least direct route out of here to Aglionby. They’re breaking curfew as it is, which already means detention, but if the cops follow them back to school they’re as good as dead. Jiang at least is _definitely_ dead, and his mother’s last phone call rings painfully in his ears as he recalls her shouting about _one more phone call from the police and we’re shipping you to your grandparents in Hong Kong in a crate!_

“Fucking _floor_ it, Jiang!” Kavinsky hollers, both arms wrapped around the headrest of Jiang’s seat. “They’re catching up!”

“I am flooring it, you shitcanoe! How many?”

“Two, three?”

“This is a disaster of a plan, Swan!” Proko complains. Jiang forgets the stupid GPS, which _still_ isn’t working anyway, pulls a crazy turn around a mid-intersection traffic island and speeds at least forty over the limit ‘til he hits the main road.

“How the hell was _I_ supposed to know Skov’s neighbor’s a cop?”

“You’re shitting me, no _wonder_ they’re here so fast-”

“Fuck all four of you,” Skov pipes in. “I had the situation under control, and now you’ve set _fire to my FUCKING HOUSE.”_

“You sure that wasn’t all the candles from you _summoning the fucking devil?_ ” Swan snaps. Skov bristles and sucks in a huge breath as he gears up to start screaming in earnest. In the rearview mirror, illuminated by the encroaching lights of what has to be at least four cop cars ( _they’re multiplying,_ Jiang thinks bitterly), Kavinsky climbs over Proko in the backseat to pin Skov against the door and get up in his face. There are daggers in his gaze and impetuous, selfish anger in the set of his jaw.

“I don’t care if your stupid house burns down,” he snarls, “with your shithead parents still in it and everything. In fact, I hope they don’t make it out. I hope they die screaming. You deserve better-”

“And I was trying to fucking _take_ better for myself, you self-aggrandizing piece of shit!” Skov screams back. “You do _not_ have to stick your dick in everybody’s personal problems just because you think you’d handle it different, okay? By the way, my siblings are still in there, they didn’t do anything wrong –I had _everything_ under control, I was even gonna come find you guys later tonight when it was done-” and instead of finishing that thought, he cuts off with a broken sob and punctuates it with a sudden brutal kick right to Kavinsky’s sternum, and then Jiang has to slam hard on the brakes because even paying peripheral attention to his asshole friends fighting it out in the rearview mirror managed to distract him long enough that one of the cop cars managed to get out in front of them.

“God _dammit,”_ he hisses as the Supra screeches to an unpleasant sliding halt just a foot short of hitting the cop car. Nobody but him has their stupid seatbelts on, it’s a miracle Kavinsky didn’t go through the windshield. Jiang tires to reverse and pull a U-turn, but the cars following them have caught up and blocked the street behind them, and the poor Supra just isn’t cut out for off-road excursions. They’d make it six feet and the axle would choke on some asshole’s un-mown lawn.

“And now you’ve gone and gotten us fucking _arrested_ ,” Skov adds, smiling entirely humorlessly as silent tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes, and he slumps hopelessly against the window. Swan, in the shotgun seat, buries his face in his hands and cusses a blue streak so long that Jiang loses track of how many creative combinations of curse words he manages to spit out before the police are tugging the doors of the car open and ordering them to put their hands where they can see ‘em.

Jiang steps carefully out of the car. There’s no point trying anything funny at this rate; he already knows how it goes. They’re lined up and each made to take a breathalyzer test –Jiang knows Kavinsky at the very least pregamed this with cocaine, but does that even show up on breathalyzers? Probably not. As the cops cuff each of them and lead them to their patrol cars, he hears Skov still yelling at all of them, but mostly at Swan, and Kavinsky threatening the police with his father’s wrath, and Proko valiantly trying to explain that everything was all just a misunderstanding, officer.  

As one of the cops opens the back door of the patrol car for him, Jiang thinks first that this is not at all a misunderstanding, and they definitely just committed arson. Not at all a first for him, and the cops down at the station are gonna take one look at his bandaged hands and say “again, kid? What happened to your psychiatrist?”

The cop pushes him into the back of the car next to Prokopenko, and with a scowl he says, “This would _never_ have happened if I’d been running demolitions.”

And Proko says, “Why d’you think I insisted I do it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is Seven Devils by Florence + The Machine, which isn't what I had in mind when I came up with it, and actually isn't what I listened to while I wrote it, but it fits better than what I was listening to, and I wanna use that song (Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene) for a later chapter in which we meet some of the mafia?
> 
> also this is a thing that shoulda happened months ago but i finally finalized character designs oops so if any of em look slightly different in the art here than they have before, these are probably what i'm stickin with from now on
> 
> anyway yep things have officially gone tits up, join us next update (Bad Blood by Bastille, probably) for everyone yelling at each other from behind bars at the Henrietta police station!


	8. Bad Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for this chapter: self-harm, transphobia, minor panic attack. also the art in this chapter is a little bloody, if that bothers you to look at
> 
> also this chapter has not been beta-read, please let me know if there's any typos or glaring errors.
> 
> also also this chapter intros a couple of original characters from K's family and should also help me pass the bechdel test in the next chapter oops. hopefully you like em they're gonna be interesting. mostly they'll be background plot-relevant in regards to the mafia shenanigans.

If he thinks about it, Swan never figured his first time getting sent to jail would be for inadvertent arson. In fact, if he ever considered it at all, he’d always figured if he did anything prison-worthy it’d be murder, and he’d premeditate it so tactically and specifically that he’d be able to skillfully evade the police and not end up behind bars to begin with.

“And if _I_ had been driving, we probably wouldn’t _be here_ right now!” he growls across the hallway to the cell across from him, where Jiang is sitting irritably with his arms and legs both crossed tightly in front of him.

“I never asked to drive,” he says, sounding altogether far too calm for someone who’s literally in jail pending the arrival of either parents or Aglionby R.A.s to come get them. Technically speaking –and thank god Prokopenko memorized the Virginia laws last time he got pulled over with a DUI, because he’s the one who reminded the cops –they can’t be held indefinitely unless Skov’s parents press charges against them. That said, Swan wouldn’t put it past them by any means. He imagines they’d like to do anything in their power to make sure Skov never sees the four of them again.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t put up much of a fight,” Swan accuses.

“That’s because _Proko_ was acting like getting to set off the bomb would be the best orgasm he’s had all month, and I’m not one to deny that,” Jiang says, sighing impatiently. “Look, this isn’t _my_ fault.”

“It’s one-fourth your fault,” says Skov, from another nearby cell. This is the first thing he’s said since they got out of the patrol cars. “And one-fourth the rest of all your faults, and _none_ of it is my fault, and after tonight you better expect me to never speak to any of you again. Do you _know_ how bad this is? They’re gonna blame this all on _me_.”

Swan pauses pacing his cell just long enough to gaze mournfully at Skov. Of _course_ they’d blame it on him, wouldn’t they? They’d take it out on Kavinsky and Proko and Jiang and him, but Skov would get the worst end of it. A hideous lump of guilt twists itself in Swan’s throat and he turns to angrily kick the barred cell door, which does absolutely nothing but make his toes sore. Giving up on that, he leans his forehead against the bars and says, “No, none of this is Jiang’s fault, or any of the rest of you. My plan, my fault.”

“Don’t try to take it all on yourself, man,” says Proko. He’s in a nearby cell too, but Swan can’t see him. “I mean, we all agreed-”

“I came up with it all,” Swan says, digging his fingernails into his palms. “I planned the whole stupid thing, and it really literally blew up in our faces.”

“Well, _that_ was actually my fault,” says Proko. “Um.”

“And what the fuck do you mean by that?” says Jiang, tilting his head in the direction of Proko’s voice. His mouth narrows into a thin, pressed line, and then his eyes widen, and then his face contorts into a mask of disturbed fury. “Oh, oh my god. You’re _joking_.” Jiang drags both hands down his face and continues to gape at the wall between his and Proko’s cells.

“Yeah, uh,” Proko laughs uncomfortably. “So if I said the house catching fire was totally all my fault, would you guys kill me?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s my fault too,” says Swan. “I knocked over a bunch of candles in Skov’s room when I went to go get him and probably lit the carpet on fire-”

“Candles? Oh my god, dude, did they take your electricity privileges or something?” Proko yelps.

“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard in my entire fucking life,” says Skov. “And I don’t care which of you wants to take the blame, it’s still on all of you. Swan, you get extra moron points for thinking you needed to save me to begin with.”

“But- no, seriously, I set the fire –wait, seriously, why candles?”

Swan shrugs exaggeratedly, trying to ignore how deep Skov’s last accusation cut him. He feels sick to his stomach when he snaps, “Mister Ungrateful-Little-Shit over there was trying to summon the fucking Devil or something in his bedroom-”

“Swan, shut your goddamn mouth,” Skov yells.

“No, you’re treating me like shit when all I did was try to help! You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Turning back to Proko, he says, “He was doing some kinda ritual, he had a fuckin’ pentagram and everything, and like, fucking, I don’t even know, like a human heart or something-”

“Skov, what the _fuck_ ,” says Jiang, and then pauses and shakes his head and says, “No, wait, _Swan_ , what the fuck. Okay, there’s a difference between Satanism and witchcraft, only Skov’s too upset to properly articulate that.”

“I’m not sure how _you’re_ not too upset to use the phrase ‘properly articulate,’ man,” says Proko. “You’re in jail too, remember? Anyway, candles aside, I still set the house on fire. I take full responsibility.”

“Dude, what are you _on_ about?”

“Anyway, I think that was _my_ fault,” says Skov, sounding simultaneously glum and surprised and a lot of other emotions all at once. “Probably the curse worked, but differently than I meant, because I got angry about something else in the middle of it. I think my curse backfired.”

“You were _cursing_ someone?” Proko gasps, and then fucking _crosses_ himself, and Swan bites back a laugh. He wasn’t aware he could even still manage a laugh at this point in the night. Kicking the bars of the cell again was starting to look like a better option with every passing minute.

“Yeah, which is why I kept saying I had the whole damn thing under control!” he yells. “I was cursing my stupid parents, and then I was gonna run away from home. And it would’ve gone perfectly fucking fine, but then you idiots showed up and ruined everything and put my kid siblings in danger, and got us sent the fuck to jail!”

Outburst finished, Skov deflates a little bit. Swan can barely see him in the back of his cell, but he can tell that he’s slumped against the back wall with his arms around his knees and his head down. He makes a horrible little sound that might be a sob, and Swan feels like shit all over again. It’s all his fault that Skov’s sitting in a jail cell waiting for his shitbag parents to take him away and ruin them all.

“It wasn’t the, the freakin curse backfiring,” insists Proko. “If you guys would let me finish a thought-”

“No way am I letting you finish that thought,” says Jiang, “or touch one of my creations ever again, you ridiculous psychopath, you could’ve killed someone!”

“What’d he do?” Swan asks, worry pooling in his gut.

Jiang stands and paces over to the front of his cell. He shoves a hand between the bars and jabs an accusing finger at Proko in the cell next to Swan’s and says, “You _literally_ pointed the bomb _right at the house_. You waited ‘til K had turned around or something and pointed it right at the house to _purposefully_ light it on fire, you maniac.”

Proko laughs sheepishly. He quickly realizes that nobody’s laughing with him, though, and trails off uncomfortably. Skov lurches to his feet, storms up to the very front corner of his cell, as close to Proko as he can make himself get, and starts screaming, largely incoherently, about what a dick move it’d been. Over the top of that, Proko apologizes over and over, but it doesn’t sound sincere, and Jiang keeps saying _guys, shut the fuck up_ , but nobody can hear him. Swan turns around and stalks back into his cell and punches the wall about eight times for good measure, and then keeps punching it ‘til he can’t feel his fists anymore.

He doesn’t care if Proko purposefully committed arson. He doesn’t care if Skov’s curse backfired. He doesn’t care if Jiang isn’t the best choice of driver. None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for him and his stupid ideas. They’re all fucked because of him. His knuckles tingle like acid, and his whole body aches from exhaustion and emotional overhaul, and he wants to curl up into a ball but like hell he’s doing that in front of the pack, even if he is in his own cell where most of them can’t see him.

He wants to keep punching the wall until he bores through it. He wants to get blackout drunk and pass out on the floor of his room. He wants to throw himself off a bridge.

It’s a long moment before he realizes it’s gone silent, save for the sounds of his fists smacking against the wall, and his increasingly ragged breathing. He stops, suddenly, and slumps sideways against the wall.

“Swan,” says Kavinsky, and it’s jarring when he realizes this is the first thing Kavinsky’s said since they got out of the here, “you’re making a scene.”

Swan looks over his shoulder, but he can’t see Kavinsky in the cell on the other side of Jiang’s. He turns back to the wall, and feels a strange disconnect between the bloodstains on the concrete and the blood dripping down his fingers. And in a rush, he feels dizzy, he feels like throwing up, he feels like crying, but that’s another thing he’s not doing in front of the pack, god help him.

“I didn’t say you had to stop if you’re not done,” Kavinsky’s voice floats over again. “But the guys watching you from the security camera might come put you in a straightjacket if you keep this shit up.”

Swan looks up where Kavinsky’s indicated. Indeed there is a camera up there, and quite probably the police have seen the whole incident, and they’re going to have a Discussion with Swan’s father when he shows up. The thought of this is horrifyingly sobering, this makes Swan’s blood run cold, this takes all the fight right out of him and he sinks quietly to the floor. He backs himself into the corner where the fewest of them can probably see him, and he pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his forehead against them, and he lets out a long, ragged breath.

“I fucked up,” he says, ideally to Skov, but mostly to himself. “I really, really fucked up.”

    

Kavinsky doesn’t sleep. He’s too concerned –nigh paranoid, really –that now that he’s in jail, his family is going to come and get him. He’s completely defenseless. And it’s not like either of his parents are fit to come pick him up at the police station, so who will? Is he destined to fester in here until his father’s family shows up with guns and storms the building?

It’s enough to keep him silent, eyes wide and jumping at every small noise, even after the rest of the pack dozes fitfully off in their own cells. He suspects Swan’s still awake, perhaps, but he doesn’t expect a response from him so he doesn’t bother. It wouldn’t be good conversation anyway, and the last thing Kavinsky needs right now is morbidity. The coke is wearing off, and so’s the weed, and the alcohol was leaving his system a long-ass time ago, and the grim nihilism of reality is setting heavily back into his system. Not sleeping isn’t helping his case any either.

Somewhere around four in the morning –if he had to guess, they took his phone –his panic manages to grow a shell of shivering rage around itself. How _dare_ he be stuck here, made to deal with this shit? He’d sooner shoot himself in the head than stay here waiting for someone else to do it.

By 4:30 he’s decided he’s breaking out before anyone shows up to do him in.

By five he’s digging his nails into his arms, threatening to break the skin, out of fear that Skov’s parents are going to get him thrown right back into a different jail.

5:30 and he’s decided as soon as he breaks out he’ll kill Skov’s parents and solve ninety percent of their collective problems at once.

At six in the morning on the dot, Aglionby’s guidance counselor and the R.A. from Jiang and Prokopenko’s floor show up, sign all the requisite papers and grumpily thank the police before collecting the boys. On their way out the door, Kavinsky hears them announce in-school suspension for all four of them, and community service even if no charges are pressed. Kavinsky wants to shout after them that they don’t have to worry about charges being pressed, because the minute he and Skov are both out of here, there’s not going to be anyone left to press charges. Not if he’s got anything to say about it.

Swan’s father shows up next, about an hour later, and rouses his son from a fitful sleep on the floor of his cell. Kavinsky is oddly struck by how similar they look; the same white-blond hair, sharp gray eyes, even the same perma-frown, which his father twists into a scowl as Swan wakes up. Horrible realization dawns on Swan, and he does his best to shove his hands in his pockets before his dad can see his scabbing knuckles, but it doesn’t help much.

“The police already told me about that,” he says, and Swan somehow turns even paler than he already is. Kavinsky wishes he could laugh at him right now, because laughing at Swan always makes him feel better about himself. “Get in the car.”

As Swan’s collecting himself, Skov’s parents arrive, and Kavinsky stands. He catches the mother’s sleeve as she goes by and says to her, “You don’t know me, but you probably know my father. You take any legal action, I’ll fucking destroy you.” He hates pulling the _mobster dad_ card, but everyone in Henrietta knew his name, and none of suspect that he’s gone anywhere but on a business trip. He thinks he’d rather put the fear of god in this bitch, but he’s going to save that for later when it matters. A taste for now is just enough.

Skov’s mother pulls her sleeve away from him, disgusted. “You delinquents are responsible for ruining my daughter,” she hisses, and before Kavinsky can have his own rebuttal, Swan shoves past his father and puts himself between Skov’s cell and his parents.

“Like hell I’m letting you take him away,” he says. Skov, barely awake, groans in frustration because how the hell has Swan not learned that he doesn’t want other people to fight his battles for him? Of course, Kavinsky’s the one who threatened to set Swan on fire if he hurt Skov, so he’s one hell of a hypocrite as it is, but the point still stands.

“She’s our daughter and she’s coming home,” Mrs. Skov snaps. “Get out of the –please control your son!” she says, turning to Swan’s father.

“He’s not your fucking _daughter_ ,” Swan screams.

“Go the fuck away,” Skov pleads. “Everyone just leave me _alone_.”

“Is there no discipline in your households?” Mrs. Skov looks truly furious now. “Your delinquent son has been getting my daughter into all kinds of trouble, just _look_ at what she’s done to herself, cut off all her hair, pretending she’s a boy-”

“Xavier,” says Mr. Swan. “Time to go.”

“Fuck you, dad, I’m not leaving him.”

“This is not the time nor the place to have this battle. You can help your friend when he’s not sitting in a jail cell.”

Possibly it’s hearing his father validate Skov, even a little, that takes the fight out of him, or possibly it’s the fact that he’s simply correct about this not being a proper venue for this fight, but Swan grudgingly agrees to stand down. As his father leads him sternly out of the station, he shouts over his shoulder that Skov’s parents are abusive fucks and they’re gonna get what’s coming to them someday.

Kavinsky thinks he’s very much correct, and that someday is coming someday soon.

For all the valiant independence he put forth, Skov still reaches for Kavinsky as he passes his cell with his shitbag parents, and Kavinsky gives him a solemn nod that he hopes indicates that none of them will let it end for him like this.

And then he’s alone. And the panic sets _right_ back in. He hadn’t realized what a sense of relief he’d felt having the others awake and around at all, and the thought that he’d begun to relax around them seems fantastically stupid to him now. Who’s to say Swan –new kid in school, antagonistic hipster-wannabe fuckoff –isn’t secretly working for the Family? Who’s to say none of the others were bribed into it? It’s a stupid thing to think; he’s known Jiang since coming to Aglionby and Proko since coming to the states and Skov –well, he knows way too much about Skov to even suspect him. But the thought sticks persistently in his head like a fishhook and tears him up around the edges.

Someone’s coming to kill him, right now, he’s dead sure of it. Maybe it’s the panic talking, but when the panic talks it always thinks it’s right.

The door down the hall opens again, and Kavinsky’s on his feet and in what he thinks approximates a combat stance as fast as he can move. He can streetfight, but you can’t punch a gun, so it’s probably useless. But it makes him feel like he’s at least trying to put up a last stand. He listens carefully to the voices as they approach down the hall; one is the same cop that brought everyone’s parents and chaperones in earlier; the other is a sing-song voice he feels like he recognizes from somewhere, but he can’t quite place.

It’s better, he thinks, if it’s someone he doesn’t know. He can’t feel like it’s personal, and if he gets the chance, he can kill them without it being personal. It’s alright. It’s cool. He’s cool.

He is very, very, very much not cool. He feels like he’s already dead.

Into his line of vision walks the cop, followed by… a girl. An unarmed girl. An unarmed girl his age?

The shock of his expectations rubbing up against a very different reality causes him to drop his guard and stare in annoyed confusion.

She’s a _really normal-looking_ girl. Long dark hair, the color his is before he bleaches it blond. Sharp blue eyes; she’s definitely his dad’s side of the family. Black crop-top, black pants, black combat boots, black fingerless gloves and all of a sudden it hits him.

“Ilina?” Kavinsky gapes at her. Ilina Kavinsky grins, and he could be looking in a mirror. He hasn’t seen his cousin since he was seven, and here she is.

He hopes she isn’t here to take him out behind the police station and kill him. That would really ruin his childhood.

They let him out of the cell, and Ilina fills out whatever requisite paperwork there is while Kavinsky considers running for his life. The only thing that keeps him from it is the memory that he used to be able to beat Ilina up as a kid. He hopes he can still manage it. He hopes he still knows her weak points.

Ilina leads him outside to a real unfortunate-looking Jetta that must be a rental because nobody buys a car that brutally ugly on purpose. Ilina opens the shotgun-side door for him and he climbs inside, and she gets in the driver’s side, and they pull out of the parking lot in silence. Ilina’s still grinning. It’s starting to unnerve Kavinsky. He briefly and morbidly entertains the thought that she’s going to pull off on some side street and shoot him. He briefly and morbidly entertains the thought of seizing the wheel and crashing the car to kill them both.

Ilina drives them all the way to the Henrietta exit, and onto the highway before anybody speaks. And when somebody does, it’s neither of them.

“ _Well, cousin, you’ve got yourself royally fucked_.”

Kavinsky whirls around in his seat; he hadn’t realized anyone was in the backseat of the car. Another girl sits back there, short curly hair in her face. Also a cousin, but one of his mom’s side. Kavinsky’s surprised he remembers enough of his Bulgarian to understand anything besides the expletives. “Liliya?” he guesses, because his mom’s side of the family is full of girl cousins with too much curly hair, and he can’t be assed to keep them all straight if he only ever sees them in holiday card photos.

“ _Yes, hello. You never replied to Ilina’s email_ ,” she says.

Kavinsky laughs. It hurts his throat. “ _Ilina’s email said my dad’s brothers were lining up to turn me into Swiss cheese. What was I supposed to do, R.S.V.P.?_ ”

“ _I thought you’d wonder why I sent it instead of them_ ,” Ilina says irritably. “ _It was a warning, you dunce. I can’t believe we had to come all the way out to the middle of nowhere to find your sorry butt._ ”

“ _Out of curiosity_ ,” says Kavinsky, “ _Why_ are _you here? Are you gonna take me out to some abandoned rest stop and kill me? Also, how do you two know each other anyway?”_

Ilina and Liliya both laugh. Kavinsky immediately wants out of the car, because it’s the most terrifying sound he’s experienced all week.

“ _We’re here_ ,” says Ilina, “ _to use you to take down the Family_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also im gonna apologize because i have never been to jail so this scene is based on my experience watching movies that involve jail scenes???? s orry lol
> 
> anyway stay tuned for next chapter in which Jiang and Proko have a moral argument about arson, Swan do something really fucking stupid involving alcohol, and Skov and K do something somehow even stupider involving alcohol and a gun. 
> 
> debating "This is How We Kill Stars" by Shaka Ponk for the next chapter title but this is one where I have to see how it goes first before I figure that out


	9. How We Kill Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dear god it lives  
> i live  
> get ready to get hecked  
> this chapter finally justifies the "gratuitous descriptions of violence" tag, so warning for that. and warning for various slurs, also,,,, I think that's it, actually? if i've missed something please tell me so I can warn at the start of the chapter for it.

Ilina parks the car at a dingy and unpleasant rest stop and pulls a six-pack of beer from the trunk of the shitty rental car. The three of them sit atop the car, Liliya with her face in her laptop and Kavinsky forced between the two girls. In a fit of minor panic – an _understandable one_ , he convinces himself, after a day like he’s had - Kavinsky discreetly pulls out his phone and shoots a text to Proko containing his exact GPS coordinates. He tucks his phone into the waistband of his shorts, and as he pops open a beer Ilina hands him, she tells a story. It goes like this:

Two households, quite unalike in dignity, are joined by marriage when Timotei Kavinsky marries Anastasiya. Anastasiya’s parents are none too pleased with how secretive Timotei is about his family, but he makes a solid income and he seems to love her very much. For a few years, everything is good; the marriage is happy, the in-laws manage to get along, when Timotei’s family deigns to meet up, and Timotei and Anastasiya have a child named Yosif.

This is Kavinsky, currently Joseph. He hasn’t been Yosif since he was two. He’s not sure he remembers how to be.

For a few years, everything is good. The marriage is happy. Ilina and Timotei’s other nieces and nephews, and Liliya and the other children from Anastasiya’s side, delight in not being the youngest cousins any longer. The two sides of the family get along _just fine_. And then Anastasiya’s side of the family find out that Timotei’s side is the mafia by means of a botched assassination attempt, and for obvious reasons, things begin to get hairy.

This, then, is the first problem.

Anastasiya and Timotei fight; as it turns out, Timotei didn’t tell his darling wife what he _really_ did for a living. Timotei and his brothers fight, because that’s what families do when they try to run _any_ kind of business together. The botched assassination attempt turns into a proper assassination, and when Kavinsky is two and Liliya is four and Ilina is six, Timotei’s older brother is murdered by his younger brothers, and Timotei inherits the family.

This is the second problem.

Timotei and Simeon are twins, and both brothers think the family belongs to them. Timotei argues he’s the older twin, by eight whole minutes. Simeon decides to kill Timotei almost immediately, and so Timotei makes Anastasiya apologize to her family, and he packs their bags, burns their records, covers their trail, and drags his wife and son to New Jersey.

Simeon does not give up. He simply bides his time and tries to find his brother. Technically, he never does, because Kavinsky kills his father himself, before Simeon gets the chance.

This is the third and most recent problem, and the one most pressing to Kavinsky. This is the problem that says he’s next in line on the chopping block.

“So you own the family business,” clarifies Ilina, at the end of her second beer, which is not exactly news. Regardless, Kavinsky chugs the rest of his drink before he even considers responding, because this is still kind of a lot to take in. It’s one thing to know your dad is a mob boss, and that the various men in suits that visited the house – first in Jersey City, then even in Henrietta – are all mobsters themselves. It’s quite another to look back on all that and realize they must’ve been helping him stay in hiding, passing information about Simeon’s movements. That his mother’s increasing fury and violence toward the family was because she could never see her own family again and the man she married had lied to her and dragged her and her son away from everything she’d ever known and cared for, and put them in jeopardy.

Kavinsky stares down at his phone – Proko’s response to his message consists entirely of three of those stupid prayer hands emojis plus a winking smiley – and he briefly entertains the thought that this all justifies his father’s paranoia. Justifies, explains, _does not excuse_. It doesn’t excuse his mother being a wreck, doesn’t excuse Timotei’s patronizing and screaming and hitting, doesn’t excuse his mother descending into drug addiction to hide from him and whatever it’s done to Kavinsky himself – although, he’s willing to argue he’s rather well-adjusted for what he’s had to put up with. Anyway, it doesn’t excuse Timotei putting a gun to his own son’s head, or spontaneous threats of violence if Kavinsky ever suggested a friend come over as a kid. None of it gets excused, and even considering it a justification makes him feel like throwing up.

He opens a third beer, because Liliya isn’t drinking, and this isn’t the kind of thing he wants to think about sober. There aren’t a lot of things he ever wants to think about sober.

Once he’s finished the beer, and decided that his father still deserved to be shot (probably several times more than Kavinsky actually did), he says to the two of them, in English, “So fucking what?”

“What?” Ilina glowers at him.

“ _Why the fuck are you telling me any of this anyway? I think if I gave any less of a shit I’d make myself constipated._ ”

Ilina whaps him on the back of the head. He whaps her back. She says, “ _We need you as a decoy.”_

 _“Decoy,”_ Kavinsky repeats. He shushes Ilina when she tries to elaborate, because he’s not fucking stupid and he doesn’t need it explained. They want to take down – or over –the mafia. The mafia that he, by blood, owns. And that Ilina’s father, his uncle, is trying to kill him for.

_“So you need me to fake my own death and help you kill him?”_

_“It’s easier than one of us trying to kill him ourselves_.”

Kavinsky seriously considers this as an option. He thinks if it got to a point where Simeon’s threats were interrupting his life to a truly unbearable extent, he could do it. Run him over with Mitsubishi number 24, or whichever copy he’d managed to reach by then. It’s not like he isn’t already a killer. He wonders if he should feel bad about how little he cares that he is. He wonders why he’s letting himself _wonder_ so much, and it occurs to him he hasn’t had anything besides alcohol in his system in several hours, and he could really do with getting high again right now. This near-existentialism experience is starting to freak him out.

“I really don’t give a shit,” says Kavinsky. “If you want him dead, that’s your problem. Leave me the hell out of it.”

Conveniently, this is when Proko’s radioactive purple Golf screams off the road and pulls over right in front of them. Proko kicks open the passenger side door from across the front seat, and Kavinsky hops off the roof of the rental car and slides into the shotgun seat of the car.

Door slammed, accelerator slammed, Kavinsky’s whooping it up through the open window as they rocket off down the highway with Ilina’s frustrated yelling receding in the distance. Kavinsky punches Proko affectionately in the shoulder as they speed back toward Henrietta.

“The fuck were they?” asks Proko, nodding over his shoulder.

“Family’s in town.”

“Gonna be a problem?”

“…Not yet.”

“But they will,” Proko fixes Kavinsky with a look that says something like _and I’m gonna be dealing with it for you, aren’t I?_

Kavinsky has long since memorized what each of Proko’s different irritated faces denote. He’s got specific ones for different types of irritation, like scrunching his eyebrows further together when he’s annoyed about mandatory schoolwork, or the squinty one he gets when someone says something unfathomably stupid and self-incriminating while intoxicated. The bitten-lip narrowed eyes raised eyebrow look is reserved exclusively for the moments where Prokopenko is simultaneously resigned to getting dragged into Kavinsky’s shit and yet bothered at himself for how excited he is by the prospect of danger.

It’s one of Kavinsky’s favorites, and it’s just for him. And it’s a damn good thing he’s already prepared to get fuck-deep in some real unpleasant shit for him, because the afternoon is looking pretty gruesome from here.

“It’s gonna get weird, Proko. Let’s go fix yesterday’s shit.”

               

 

Skov doesn’t answer the motel phone when it rings, but he does pick it up and hang up before his parents can get anywhere near it. It’s stupid to wonder who’s calling, because there's only one answer and it's not one he's in the mood to contend with. Skov crosses to the window and peeks through the blinds. There’s a white Mitsubishi with a knife decal and a violently purple Golf in the parking lot, each one with a young disaster of a boy leaning on the back bumper. Proko catches Skov’s eye through the window and gives him a terse nod.

Skov wants to throw up. The pack has already ruined his life once in the past twenty-four hours, and as soon as Skov’s mother gets off the phone with her lawyer, or the therapist she keeps threatening Skov with, or whoever she’s talking to, it’s only getting worse. He’s already told them all to fuck off, and he doesn’t need them ruining things anymore. He’s already probably staring juvie or conversion therapy in the face, and right now he isn’t sure which is worse.

But Kavinsky and Proko aren't gonna leave without a fight.

With a resigned sigh, Skov tells his father he’s going to get something from the vending machine in the lobby – it hasn’t even crossed Skov’s parents’ mind that he could leave easily, but he knows if he did the first thing they’d do is call the police. His siblings both tag along because they might get candy out of the deal if they come; it’s not their fault they’ve been taught unpleasant opinions by their parents, and they’ve got time to grow up and learn better. Skov’s still feeling pretty pleasantly towards them, unfortunately. They tug at Skov’s hoodie sleeves as he walks them down the hall and right past the vending machines and out the front of the motel.

“Maja,” says his brother, “where are you going?”

“I told you don’t call me that,” says Skov Up ahead, Kavinsky and Proko lean casually against the back of the Mitsubishi. It’s less that they’re trying to be purposefully intimidating and more that they just kind of _look_ that way anyway. “ _Especially_ not in front of these guys.”

“Why not? Who’s that?” asks his sister. She frowns derisively at Proko and Kavinsky.

“They might stab you. Or something.” And truth be told, Skov is entirely unsure if Kavinsky _would_ stab children. At this point, he’s not sure if Kavinsky’s actually above _anything_ if he’s able to convince himself it’s the right course of action.

“Are they your friends? They look mean.”

“They’re not my friends,” says Skov, with a slight twinge somewhere in the traitorous vicinity of his heart, and he and Kavinsky lock eyes as he comes to a stop before the pair of them. “They _are_ mean.”

“Who’s the entourage?” Kavinsky asks, tilting his sunglasses down to get a better look at Skov’s siblings. Whatever he seems to think of them, he twists it into a sneer. “Proko, take Skov’s weird kid copies and take them –uh, somewhere. I really don’t give a fuck. I need to talk to Skov by himself.”

“Maja says you’re mean,” says his sister, backing behind him. “I don’t wanna go anywhere.”

“Who the fuck is Maya?” says Kavinsky, sneering. “Elliot, ditch the brats. Proko, deal with these little mutants. Take ‘em for IHop or some shit. Do kids like IHop these days? IHop is the shit.”

“You said a bad word,” accuses Skov’s brother.

“Fuck off, maggot,” replies Kavinsky, mirthfully flipping the bird. Proko grabs his wrist and forces his middle finger back down.

Somehow, Prokopenko manages to be good with children, and gets down on his knees so he’s closer to their eye level. “I’ll let you ride in the front seat if you behave,” he says with a smile that could almost let him pass as innocent. “And I play cool music your parents don’t let you listen to.”

“He’s safe,” Skov admits, resigning himself to the fact that he’s not getting rid of Kavinsky until he’s said whatever the fuck he came here for. It’s not like Skov has to acquiesce to his shitty demands or anything. He thinks he could probably win in a fistfight against Kavinsky if he really put effort into it. Kavinsky’s not incredibly strong, but he fights dirty and he knows where to hit so it hurts the worst. And he always twists the knife. Skov’s not that clever a fighter, but if he gets the jump on Kavinsky he could brute force his way through a fight before K could get his knives out.

Skov squints at the beginnings of the sunset and sighs. “Go get food with Proko,” he encourages his siblings.

Once the kids have finished arguing over who rides shotgun in Proko’s ridiculous purple monster of a car and they’ve left the parking lot, Kavinsky circles around the side of the Mitsubishi and pulls a bag out through the open window. He tosses it to Skov; inside is a fresh set of clothes. Proper guy clothes. Nice, stylish shit Skov couldn’t afford if he wanted to. It even looks like the right size, and not even the thought that it’s kind of invasive that Kavinsky knows what size his clothes are is enough to stop his breath from catching in his throat.

“You can change in the backseat,” says Kavinsky, unlocking the Mitsubishi. Kavinsky doesn’t apologize for anything, ever. Even though he knows he fucked up stepping in when Skov didn’t need to be saved, he’s not apologizing, because he still thinks he’s right. This isn’t an apology, just a peace offering. Kavinsky either wants something out of him, or wants Skov to stay his, whether he wants to or not.

Skov tugs at the front of the hoodie. It’s his brother’s, and it’s too small, and he’s only got a stupid sports bra on under it. He still feels like throwing up. He considers that if he’s going to, he might as well ruin the backseat of the Mitsubishi. It’s not like Kavinsky can’t just replace it; he’s got a whole fucking field of them.

Skov feels like crying when he empties out the bag of clothes onto the backseat and finds an actual binder among them. He hadn't realized Kavinsky knew what one _was._ He wants to kiss Kavinsky almost as much as he wants to hit him.

He decides he’d rather the second option, when he discovers exactly how fucking difficult it is to get a binder on for the first time in the backseat of a car, especially when Kavinsky cracks up watching him struggle with it through the window.

When Skov reemerges, in an outfit much more reminiscent of Kavinsky’s purposefully-trashy forgery-brand-name shit-tier fashion sense than his own more casual ripped-jeans taste, Prokopenko still hasn’t returned with his siblings. Skov picks at the hem of the bright-white shirt and sighs heavily. He feels more himself than ever, but at the same time something is off. He gets the feeling this might be on purpose.

“What do you want, shitheel?” Skov asks, shuffling around to lean up against the back bumper with Kavinsky. He offers Skov a joint. Skov sneers at him, but he takes it anyway. It’s been the longest, worst few days of his life. Getting high won’t save his mood, but it might dull the burn for a little.

The two of them stand, not talking, not touching, hardly acknowledging each other except to pass the joint back and forth, and the sun begins to dip beyond the horizon. Skov inhales deeply from the joint and watches his shadow inch longer and longer across the parking lot. He thinks his father’s let him be gone for quite some time for having just gone to the vending machine. He wonders if they’ve called the police yet.

Kavinsky watches him smoke his way through a good half of the joint before he even begins to reply, and the start of it isn’t even words. It’s Kavinsky shuffling around in the pocket of his sagging cargo pants and producing a shiny silver gun. He takes Skov’s hand – his fingers twitch; he must be on _something_ – and presses the cold metal of the gun into his palm. Skov stares, first at the gun, then at Kavinsky, then back at the gun, not comprehending.

Slowly, and a little bit vindictively, he points the gun at Kavinsky. 

 

Kavinsky flinches noticeably, and Skov immediately drops his hand back down to his side, the gun hanging limply in his fingers. Dick though Kavinsky is, it’s not like he purposefully set out to ruin Skov’s life. Sure, Skov’s going to get some kind of revenge for it later, but shooting Kavinsky with his own gun seems a little much for trying to help him out.

He’s still furious. But shooting Kavinsky is too fast a vengeance for the grief he’s been put through.

 “It’s real,” Kavinsky clarifies hoarsely. His eyes don’t leave the gun, and Skov takes sharp notice of this.

“It’s a dream,” Skov corrects, because somehow he can tell, the same way he can tell the binder is a dream thing and the witchcraft materials were dream things. They thrum against his skin in a way that normal things don’t, as if they’ve been pulled out of a different time or space and their rhythm is slightly – barely – out of sync with the regular world.

“Doesn’t make it less real.”

Skov looks once again at the gun. He shudders, suddenly.

“Where do they come from?” he wonders aloud. “The dream things.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

He still wants to know, he thinks, where the dream things really come from. It’s not like he hasn’t _seen_ Kavinsky wake up with them in his hands. He thinks he might be the only one, actually, who’s seen. Proko might not even have. He isn’t sure how private or open Kavinsky is about it. He isn’t even sure who else knows.

But, the dream things have to come from _somewhere_. Or somewhen.

“Why give me this?” he asks instead, nodding at the gun, still hanging loosely in his hand.

“Proko’s not coming back with your siblings for a little bit,” Kavinsky says. Skov isn’t sure how this is an answer. Everything coming out of Kavinsky’s stupid mouth right now is cryptic and annoying and only serves to make him angrier with him for even daring to show up and chance making Skov’s life more difficult.

And then it hits him. Like a fucking truck. And he actually retches, he claps a hand to his mouth and lurches forward, heart beating like it wants to break through his ribs.

“I’m not killing my parents,” Skov gasps. “I’m not –how the fuck could you suggest…”

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“Just because it worked for _you_ ,” Skov sneers, bringing up the rumor from the summer that Kavinsky had shot his own father.

His blood runs cold as he watches Kavinsky go deadly still.

“You _didn’t_ actually, did you?”

Kavinsky does not reply, but that’s a reply in and of itself. Skov feels sicker still, and more scared of Kavinsky than he ever has before.

“It’s not something you do if you have other fucking options,” Kavinsky says sharply. He doesn’t look at Skov, and something about that sears through the fear and makes Skov feel furiously protective for a reason he can’t entirely process. He still wants to throttle Kavinsky, certainly, but there’s something else there too.

“I have other options,” Skov says, but he doesn’t believe himself and neither does Kavinsky. “Why are you doing this?” He gestures broadly, at nothing in particular. He means the gun. He means going far above and beyond usual Kavinsky standards to help him.

Kavinsky stares incredulously at him, mouth hanging open. “Because,” he says, like it’s obvious,  “you’re not theirs and they don’t get to treat you like shit.”

Skov actually laughs at this, one loud derisive _ha_. “You treat everyone like shit,” he says.

“Not like that.”

“Since when have you been a fucking paragon of queer rights? You call Lynch faggot every other chance you get.” And Skov knows it’s because Kavinsky can barely stand the thought that he himself is gay. Possibly, he considers rather disgustedly, the only reason Kavinsky fucked him is because he’s got a cunt and not a dick.

“Lynch _is_ a faggot. Gay rights shit is beside the fucking point. You aren’t _theirs_. You’re _mine_ , you have been since you met me and you fucking know it, and you know I don’t like it when people fuck with things that belong to me.”

“I’m not a _thing,_ you piece of shit.” Skov drops the gun, barely hears it clatter on the concrete as he grabs Kavinsky by the front of his shirt and tugs him to eye level. Kavinsky grins, a dangerous knifelike thing, like this is what he’s been waiting for all this time.

“You’re not. So go in there and show your shit parents what happens when they treat you like you _are_.”

“I’m not yours,” Skov says, grip tightening on Kavinsky’s shirt. “I’m not anybody’s.”

“Might wanna remind your dearest darling boyfriend Swan of that,” Kavinsky spits. Skov shoves him back.

“I can’t do this,” he says, pointedly not looking at the gun on the ground.

“But you can’t keep on like you have been either. Make a fucking choice.”

“That’s not a choice a normal human can _make_.”

Kavinsky laughs. “You’re not a normal human. You’re too fucked up to be anywhere near.”

“I hate your fucking guts.”

Kavinsky just smiles at this. Skov wants to shoot _him_ , not his parents. He knows he wants to do violence to something, which usually isn’t his gig. Usually he prefers the indirect route. He wishes the curse had worked. He wishes he’d never met Swan, or Kavinsky, or any of them. He wishes Kavinsky would quit being a shithead. He wishes, if Kavinsky insists Skov is his, he could at least do him the courtesy of dreaming him a way out. He could dream him the right body, even-

And there it is.

“Kavinsky,” he says slowly. “One condition.”

Kavinsky raises a single eyebrow at Skov over the rim of his sunglasses. His grin could cut glass.

 

Prokopenko returns with Eva and Jonas and a large coffee for Skov in his hand. He sees neither Skov nor Kavinsky in the parking lot when he returns, which makes him nervous, and he tells the kids to wait in his car while he finds where they went. Their absence and the Thief’s continued presence in the lot are unnerving, and Proko fidgets with the neckline of his shirt as he walks into the motel lobby to ask what room Skov’s family is staying in again.

Hands shoved firmly in his pockets and poker face plastered firmly over his growing concern, he makes his way down the walk to room 15, where he finds Kavinsky outside doing a line off the back of someone’s Volkswagon.

“You’re gonna get arrested,” he says, but the day Kavinsky listens to him is the day he’s actually serious about any of his chastising. Both of them snicker at his pointless warning. “Where’s Skov?”

Kavinsky jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the motel room door. “Negotiating,” he says. “You can go check on him, if you want. I think he’s done.”

“It’s quiet in there,” Proko says, eyeing the door. He has a serious sense of foreboding, one that makes him shiver all the way down to his bones.

“That’s how you know he’s done,” Kavinsky replies. He’s grinning, but there’s something very off-putting about it. Prokopenko will never admit it, but he’s frequently quite off-put by Kavinsky. His face-rending grins make Prokopenko’s heart stutter and his stomach do funny things. He wonders if this is what crushes are supposed to feel like.

He knocks once on the motel room door, and it nudges open just a bit. He nudges it further with the toe of his boot. It creaks open ominously, like something out of a bad horror film. He smells blood wafting from inside the motel room, chuckles at the thought that he may yet actually be in a bad horror movie, and then stops and seriously asks himself how he arrived at a point in his life where the smell of blood is immediately recognizable.

 _It’s Kavinsky’s fault_ , he recognizes, of course, with a lurch of his stomach. Many things in life are Kavinsky’s fault, or his own fault, or the Pack’s fault collectively. But the mixed smell of blood and gunpowder in his life have always been K’s.

 _Gunpowder,_ notes Proko, wrinkling his nose. There’s that too, coming from the room.

Two steps into the motel room and he sees Skov, his back to the door, shaking slightly. Behind him are red splatters on the wall, blood and… bits. Of flesh. A shudder runs down Proko’s back; no matter how many bodies he’s seen – the kid they sent to check up on Kavinsky after the murder, and his brains spattered on the floor of Thief number 11; Timotei Kavinsky, blood seeping heavily into the carpet – only two but two more than most high schoolers, he’ll never be used to the _knowing_. Two more steps and he sees the glint of metal in Skov’s hand where the gun – K’s gun, the one he dreamt – hangs limp by his side. There’s flecks of blood on his shaking hands.

One more step and he sees Skov’s parents. _Horror movie,_ he thinks involuntarily, and decides it was a very good decision to leave Skov’s siblings in the car, right before he’s stumbling to the motel bathroom and retching in the sink. He breathes heavy, staring down at the grimy porcelain. He lets his eyes raise just slightly, just enough to see in the mirror. Skov stands over his parents’ bodies. His father shot in the back, three bloody stains seeping through his shirt. His mother, one shot to the head and one to the neck. Skov’s a good aim. There might not be enough of her left to be immediately identifiable.

Proko allows himself one more sobering breath, one more moment to acknowledge that Skov has one hell of a bad side to never get on and that is putting it _nicely_ , dear _god_. One more moment to deal with the fact that Skov has it in him to kill, before he turns to face him.

“Skov,” he begins, and then corrects himself. “Elliot.” He thinks if it were him, he wouldn’t want to be called by his family’s name in a moment like this, not with their blood seeping into the carpet and staining the stark-white shirt Kavinsky’s lent him.

Skov doesn’t reply. He doesn’t drop the gun, or acknowledge Proko, or stop shaking. Proko steps forward again, around the blood, around Skov. He feels cold, unsettlingly cold, and he doesn’t know why. Something about the air in the room, or the metallic smell of blood, or Skov’s lack of reaction.

Up close, Proko can hear Skov’s breathing… no, god, he’s laughing, breathlessly, terribly, and when he finally makes eye contact a chill runs down Proko’s spine. Skov’s tearing up, but his grin splits his face like a knife wound, like something Kavinsky would wear. It’s chilling and awful and Skov’s incredulous laughter makes the whole thing simultaneously so surreal and so unholy real.

“I’m free,” he breathes. “I’m fucking _free_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yells i have so many plot threads to tie up there's no way this is ending in the 20 chapters i initially projected
> 
> uh this chapter's song is How We Kill Stars by Shaka Ponk, and if you're wondering why the fuck it's such an upbeat sounding song, just imagine one of those movie montages where it's showing you the main character at a party or something fun, with this song playing, and then it keeps cutting back and forth from that fun thing to like, the main character's family getting murdered while they're out or something. That's kind of what I was imagining. like a movie montage where everything goes wrong while the protag is away. Only this movie has no protag like that. there is just a small blond Satan and his squad, fucking shit up.
> 
> gonna confess, guys, i have no idea what i'm doing right now. i have projected plot points down the road and i'm doing my best not to turn this into its own novel but as of this chapter we've got a word count of nearly 40,000 so all bets are off. updates will happen when i get to them, as i have run out of general education requirements and thus no longer have lecture classes to sit in the back of and write fic instead of taking notes.

**Author's Note:**

> Tracklist thus far:  
> Peacemaker // Green Day  
> Diane Young // Vampire Weekend  
> Dangerous // Big Data  
> Burning, And Other Misfortune // Bogsey and the Argonauts  
> Planetary (GO!) // My Chemical Romance  
> The Run and Go // Twenty One Pilots  
> Seven Devils // Florence + The Machine  
> Bad Blood // Bastille  
> How We Kill Stars // Shaka Ponk


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